In Response to the Statement of the Former Chief of the General Staff of the RA Armed Forces Onik Gasparyan

15 / 04 / 2021

In response to the statement of the former Chief of the General Staff of the RA Armed Forces, Onik Gasparyan made on 17 November 2020, the Security Council considers it necessary to clarify some of the allegations made in this statement and to publish declassified documents related to the latter.

Back in November, Mr. Gasparyan announced: “I was appointed Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces on June 8 this year and on June 12, presented the analysis of the military-political situation in the region and the capabilities of our armed forces to the Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia, and a few days later to the Security Council”.

However, Mr. Gasparyan was not on the list of the rapporteurs at the June 19 session of the Security Council following Onik Gasparyan’s appointment (there were two rapporteurs at the session), which confirms the minutes of the Security Council meeting (see excerpt № 1 ).

Next, Mr. Gasparyan stated: “On the fourth day of the war, during the session of the Security Council, I presented our losses and the assessment of the armed forces of the situation, noting that in two or three days it is necessary to take measures to stop the war, otherwise, in the event of hostilities of this intensity, our resources will be depleted in a short time and we will have more unfavorable conditions for the negotiation process in the coming days”.

In connection with this assertion, we present some excerpts from Onik Gasparyan’s report recorded at the session of the Security Council of September 30, 2020 (see excerpt № 2 ), in which Mr. Gasparyan reports: “Mr. Prime Minister, in fact, the situation is unchanged in terms of tactics, that is, the enemy has not made any progress ...”, adding “... In any case, the troops are fulfilling their task, in the morning we launched a small counterattack in the direction of Jabrayil, we had success ...”. Concluding his speech, Mr. Gasparyan noted: “This is the situation, we continue to fulfill our task and we will continue to fulfill it until the end”.

In the context of this clarification, we consider it necessary to present the minutes of the Security Council’s session of 21 August 2020 (see excerpt № 3 ), in which Onik Gasparyan particularly says: "... In the Eastern operational direction … and in the North-Eastern operational direction we manage to repel the enemy’s attack with the principle of ‘no step back’, fail the enemy's attack, crush its groups ...’’ adding: “... I see the solution of most of the problems within the framework of the creation and establishment of militia...".
This expresses Mr. Gasparyan's position on the current military-political situation and makes the latter's approaches to this issue more complete at the moment.