With each passing day, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan\u2019s statements contradicting Armenia\u2019s national interests are getting increasingly alarming<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pashinyan started by denigrating Mt. Ararat, the preeminent Armenian symbol. He then mocked Armenia\u2019s coat of arms, questioning why there is a lion on it, claiming that there are no lions in Armenia. With this statement, Pashinyan made three factual errors:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
1) He did not seem to realize that the lion symbolizes courage and strength. It has nothing to do with whether there are lions in Armenia or not;<\/p>\n\n\n\n
2) There are over a dozen countries that have a lion on their coat of arms without having a single lion in their countries;<\/p>\n\n\n\n
3) He is also incorrect that there are no lions in Armenia. A well-known oligarch has had several lions in his Yerevan mansion for many years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Prime Minister then made abusive remarks about Armenia\u2019s national anthem using the excuse that it contains the word \u201cenemy.\u201d There are several other countries that have the word enemy in their national anthems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pashinyan went on to complain that what is now called \u201cArmy of Armenians\u201d (Hayots Panag) should be \u201cArmenia\u2019s Army\u201d (Hayastani Panag), and that textbooks on the \u201cHistory of Armenians\u201d (Hayots Badmoutyoun) should be called \u201cArmenia\u2019s History\u201d (Hayastani Badmoutyoun). He also wants to distance today\u2019s Armenia from its past by contrasting \u201cReal Armenia\u201d with \u201cHistorical Armenia.\u201d He then suggested, in line with Pres. Aliyev\u2019s demand, that Armenia adopt a new constitution deleting the references to Artsakh and the Armenian Genocide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Last week, I wrote about one of Pashinyan\u2019s top lieutenants\u2019 incredible suggestion to make a list of all 1.5 million victims of the Armenian Genocide. This is an indirect way of questioning the veracity of the Armenian Genocide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All of these statements indicate that Pashinyan is retreating from Armenia\u2019s and Armenians\u2019 nationalistic stands to appease Azerbaijan and Turkey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To make matters worse, on April 24, 2024, the Prime Minister issued a statement full of confusing words which reflect his unstable mental state. He referred to the Armenian Genocide as Meds Yeghern (Great Crime) 11 times and only four times as Genocide. Meds Yeghern is a term that Armenians used until the 1940\u2019s to describe the Genocide before the term genocide was coined by Raphael Lemkin. Since then, the proper and legal term that should be used is Genocide or Tseghasbanoutyoun, in Armenian.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It does not come as a surprise that Pashinyan, in his April 24 statement, once again obfuscated the meaning of the term genocide thus continuing his attempts to downplay Armenian national symbols and terminology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pashinyan complained that due to the Meds Yeghern, Armenia often deals with other countries in a state of trauma or shock: \u201cfor this reason, sometimes we cannot correctly distinguish the realities and factors, historical processes and predictable horizons. Maybe this is also the reason why we get new shocks, reliving the trauma of the Armenian Genocide as a legacy and as a tradition.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By making such a statement, Pashinyan is blaming the trauma from the Genocide of 1915 for his incompetent decisions and mismanagement of the State. While it is true that there is such a thing as transgenerational trauma, I would advise the Prime Minister to look at his own inability to rule rather than the trauma from the Genocide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pashinyan then surprisingly suggested that Armenians \u201cstop searching for a homeland, because we have found that homeland, our Promised Land, where milk and honey flow.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It appears that Pashinyan has lost all perceptions of reality! He is describing Armenia with its existential problems as \u201cthe Promised Land where milk and honey flow!\u201d More likely, he and his family are the ones living a luxurious life at the Armenian taxpayers\u2019 expense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The only people who were pleased with Pashinyan\u2019s April 24 message are the Presidents of Azerbaijan and Turkey, Ilham Aliyev and Recep Tayyip Erdogan. An indication of that pleasure was the crowd of Turks gathered on April 24 in front of the Turkish Embassy in Washington, D.C., chanting: \u201cPashinyan, Pashinyan, Pashinyan,\u201d in the faces of Armenian protesters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The President of Turkey, as he has done on every April 24 ever since 2014, issued a statement trying to fool the international community that he is acknowledging the Armenian Genocide. He actually lumped together Armenians and Turks and everyone else \u201cwho passed away or were martyred as a consequence of armed conflicts, rebellions, gang violence and terrorist acts\u201d during \u201cWorld War I.\u201d He thus misrepresented the Armenian victims of genocide as war casualties. He described \u201cthe 1915 events\u201d not as genocide, but a \u201ctragedy in which both sides suffered casualties.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a direct message to Pashinyan, Erdogan stated that \u201cT\u00fcrkiye\u2019s ties with Armenia \u2026 appear to depend on Yerevan\u2019s stance on the issue [of genocide]\u2026 A new order is being established in the region, and it is time to set aside baseless claims. It is time to move forward with realities on the ground. It is better than moving forward with fabrications, tales.\u201d This sounds very similar to what Pashinyan is trying to do. Erdogan made the intent of his message more obvious when he said: \u201cArmenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan understands this [reality].\u201d As a final dig, Erdogan stated: \u201cI hope Armenia escapes from the darkness it was condemned to, thanks to its diaspora, and chooses the path of new beginnings.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The true meaning of Erdogan\u2019s words was revealed when the Istanbul Governor\u2019s Office once again banned the commemoration of the Armenian Genocide on April 24. Actions speak louder than words!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
With each passing day, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan\u2019s statements contradicting Armenia\u2019s national interests are getting increasingly alarming Pashinyan started by denigrating Mt. Ararat, the preeminent Armenian symbol. He then mocked Armenia\u2019s coat of arms, questioning why there is a lion on it, claiming that there are no lions in Armenia. With this statement, Pashinyan made […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4101,"featured_media":52500,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3488],"tags":[10794],"class_list":["post-823845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-harut-sassounian","tag-pashinyan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4101"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=823845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823845\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=823845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=823845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=823845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}