This kind of criticism targeted the former government and the promises to ensure a transparent negotiation process were crucial for Pashinian to gain public support in terms of the Karabakh issue as well as to help him to gain and keep the power . However , the main claim of the Armenian society and opposition forces to Pashinian after the war is that the negotiations on Karabakh before and during the war can be characterised as “ closed ” and lacking transparency , and that the decision to sign the Statement with painful losses for the Armenian society was not presented to the public approval and discussion as promised , but was kept in the strictest confidence until the very last minutes .
In the address to the nation on November 12 , 2020 Pashinian states that he had to keep the negotiation process in secret and did not consult with the public in order not to give detailed information about the real situation to the enemy ( The Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia 2020 ). Moreover , one of the reasons for keeping the negotiations process in secret , as stated by him , is that his promise to present the details to public for the approval concerned the options for the settlement of the conflict , which the agreement signed is not about , as Pashinian states that the document signed “ does not envisage a substantive solution to the issue , but only a cessation of hostilities ” ( ibid ). However , this kind of explanation is not fully convincing and raises numerous questions as the Statement signed included such conditions as handing over lands to Azerbaijan , and not only the buffer zones discussed in the Madrid principles , but also the territories of the former Karabakh Autonomous Oblast , deployment of peacekeeping forces , issue of the IDPs and refugees , and establishment of new transport links , which makes it impossible to characterise the Statement as not including the topics that he has promised to discuss with the public prior to signing any kind of a document .
Hence , Pashinian ’ s initial claims about keeping the process transparent and open with taking no secret actions and signing any confidential paper without presenting it to the public were inconsistent with his post-war statements on the importance of keeping the negotiations in secret due to a number of reasons . It can be assumed that Pashinian kept the details of the negotiations secret , realising that the terms discussed would not be accepted by the Armenian society and would face a serious backlash from the public demanding the resignation of the leader . By keeping the negotiations secret Pashinian managed to sign the Statement to stop the hostilities . The shift in the position concerning the openness of the negotiation process was also defined by his desire to minimize the public outrage , demonstrate that there was no alternative to keeping the process in secret and increase his chances of staying in power .
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