A commission of inquiry into the circumstances of the 44-day devastating war was formed in the National Assembly and the first sitting was convened. The authorities have claimed that they want to find out the preconditions for unleashing of hostilities, the political and military reasons for the defeat, the promptness of the decisions made by the military authorities, their adequacy to the military situation, and the issues related to armaments during the war.
Political analyst Andrias Ghukasyan told us that the purpose of the commission is not to conduct an impartial, comprehensive collection of facts and analysis. “The aim is to justify the actions of the authorities, the decisions made by the Prime Minister before the war and during the ceasefire, as well as to remove the responsibility from the ruling power and shift it to other figures,” said Mr. Ghukasyan.
The chairman of the commission stated in response to the journalist’s question that Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan would also be summoned for questioning. Andrias Ghukasyan considers this an act of a formal nature.
“It is a necessary process for the relevant questions and to get answers prepared in advance. All people should be questioned by the commission and the commission should conclude that there is no flaw in the actions of the ruling party. We [can] compare the steps with the Ukrainian leadership’s steps to avoid war. The OSCE mechanism was used – a 48-hour break, a discussion of the issue in the UN Security Council was used, the international community was actively involved. It was obvious that official Kiev used all possible steps to avoid the war. Can we point out what steps the RA Prime Minister has taken to avoid the war? No! It is obvious that the Prime Minister failed to prevent the war,” he said.
Andrias Ghukasyan emphasizes that there are many issues related to the war phase, which the commission will not even have the courage to raise.
“Those questions are related on how the RA National Assembly functioned during the war; was it in the competence of the Parliament to make a decision whether the RA participates in the war or not? These questions are unclear. Did Armenia de jure take part in the war? The decision of the National Assembly is required for the use of the Armenian Armed Forces outside the territory of the Republic of Armenia. The current government declares that the borders of the Republic of Armenia are the borders of the Soviet Armenia. If so, according to this logic, the National Assembly should have made a decision on should the Armed Forces of the Republic of Armenia be used outside the territory of Armenia, or not. Has such a thing happened? No, it has not,” says the political analyst, adding that there is no need to wait for any revelation.
“There will be no revelations; if there were, our society will not be able to sleep peacefully out of consternation. For example, a serious irresponsibility towards the state, the people and the soldiers would be revealed. It would be revealed that our leadership does not care about our people,” Mr. Ghukasyan concluded.
Narek Kirakosyan