You Will Have to Answer Politically for the Claim About 300,000 Azerbaijanis, Simonyan Says

YEREVAN — National Assembly Speaker Alen Simonyan has addressed Narek Karapetyan, who heads the electoral list of the Strong Armenia party, saying that Karapetyan will first try to explain and justify why his party will take its parliamentary mandates — and then will ultimately take them.

“Narek Karenich, you have entered a cycle of excuses. But you will definitely take the mandates. You have already divided up the positions — who will be the candidate for deputy speaker, who will be candidates for committee posts, and who will be the faction leader. And now you are trying to justify that foolish and false claim that 300,000 Azerbaijanis were supposedly going to come to the Republic of Armenia,” the National Assembly speaker said.

Simonyan then asked where those 300,000 Azerbaijanis were.

“Oh, they are not coming because Civil Contract did not receive a constitutional majority? Well, we do not have a constitutional majority in the National Assembly now either. Or is your basis only what some Azerbaijani mid-level figures — or some unknown people — said about return? Is that why you decided to tell people that 300,000 Azerbaijanis would return?” Simonyan said.

He stressed that opposition representatives will not be able to escape responsibility for the claim about 300,000 Azerbaijanis.

“For that lie, and for many other lies, you will have to go through a serious path of political responsibility. I have said that every time those claims are raised in the National Assembly, my colleagues and I will throw them back at you — again and again — for deceiving, frightening and threatening the Armenian people, you liars,” the National Assembly speaker added.