OSCE MG co-chairs made proposal on Artsakh in 2019; it should have  been accepted - Robert Kocharyan 

ArmInfo.  The annexation of 7 regions around Artsakh and Artsakh itself to Armenia would be something like "Artsakh is Armenia and period" - it would be just an adventure, the consequence of which would be defeat. This was stated by the second President of Armenia Robert Kocharyan at a meeting with students and teachers of the "Armenian University" in response to a  relevant question.

According to him, this was done in 2019. "We understood very well  that war, a protracted war, was problematic for us. It is really  problematic. You either need to have an ally with whom you have such  a relationship that it is ready to fully support you during this war:  with human resources, and in everything else, and material resources.  If you don't have that, then you need to be much more flexible and  try to achieve what you can through negotiations. Our approach was  like that. Were we not smart enough to say that? We would have said:  'Karabakh is Armenia, period.' Didn't I have a desire, for example,  after I was elected president of Karabakh, to hold the inauguration  in Shushi? We didn't do that, did we? At that time, we didn't even  try to involve Turkey in this issue. We have always tried to be  flexible in our relations with Turkey. I remember what we did with  that border tension in Tavush in the summer of 2018. Statements that  we defeated the Turkish-Azerbaijani tandem, that our army the  strongest army, etc. Our army was more combat-ready than the  Azerbaijani one, but in terms of potential it cannot be compared with  the Turkish army," Kocharyan noted.

At the same time, he called the idea that the war can be won simply  by having an army naive. The politician emphasized that one of the  problems of the 44-day war around Artsakh was that the army had to  withstand the first blow for 1-2 weeks, after which the entire state  with all its mechanisms had to become part of the war, which, in  fact, did not happen. According to him, one of the biggest mistakes  at that time was that they began to form detachments to send to the  front lines, instead of replenishing the existing military units that  were already fighting on the front lines with mobile resources.

When asked which of the documents on the Artsakh settlement he  considers the most successful, Kocharyan emphasized the Key West  document. "In fact, it was not signed, but it looked like the final  one.  At the last moment, Heydar Aliyev refused to sign. But what did  this document give us? For the first time, the Azerbaijani side  directly agreed that Karabakh could be part of Armenia. This was a  kind of turning point. I even asked a couple of times when we were  talking whether I understood correctly. What did this give us? It was  not signed, but after that, even the Madrid principles, which  provided for full recognition of the right to self-determination, we  already present as a big concession on our part," the second  president of Armenia noted.

Kocharyan once again noted that the Madrid principles, which were  desirable for the Armenian side, were a good document, official  Yerevan presented them as a concession from the Armenian side in the  negotiation process.

"And I am convinced that it was possible to come to some results,  indeed, it was possible to come to results, and there has been a lot  of talk about this recently. In 2019, there was a very interesting  proposal that needed to be accepted. It was simply rejected, and the  Armenian side did not even negotiate. They simply ignored it, saying:  we do not understand what you are talking about. After that, the  co-chairs also raised the issue that the Armenian side is not ready  to participate in any constructive negotiation process at all. This  is very bad. I think this was one of the reasons that no one  condemned Azerbaijan during the war, the international community  simply did not react much, because when the negotiation process is  disrupted through your fault, on your initiative, you must also bear  responsibility for these consequences, and this is logical," the  politician believes.

"Irresponsibility is one thing, and the second is that people simply  do not understand what they are doing and what consequences it may  have, but they do it in order to appear patriotic at one time or  another.  Remember, during the war, he (Nikol Pashinyan - ed.) said  that if I had accepted the offer on October 18- 19, they would have  called me a traitor? The war could have ended. The Prime Minister of  Armenia says that if I had accepted this offer, they would have  called me a traitor. Wouldn't it have been better if they had called  you a traitor, but the country would not have had such consequences?  It doesn't matter whether they say he is a traitor or not, because  that is the result. Wouldn't it have been better if they had called  me a traitor then, we would not have found ourselves in this  situation today," Kocharyan asked.