Armenia's third president and national hero Serzh Sargsyan gave an exclusive interview to @ArmNews_TV which was aired yesterday and today.

Many people have already referred to the interview as a masterclass in diplomacy and politics where Sargsyan outlined why to do what when.

He was asked about April 2018, which is when he resigned, which paved the way for Nikol Pashinyan to come to power and began, "What happened in the spring of 2018 was, in essence, an anti-Karabakh [Artsakh] movement and not just anti-Karabakh but against Karabakhtsis."

This shouldn't be shocking as Pashinyan (and his political godfather, Levon Ter-Petrosyan) have made their anti-Karabakhtsi/Artsakhtsi position very clear in the past.

You can hear Pashinyan talking about how Karabakhtsi scum need to be eliminated from "our city" during the protests when Ter-Petrosyan, aided by Pashinyan, was challenging Sargsyan and Kocharyan be rejecting the internationally-accepted election results.

The protests that Pashinyan and the other foreign-funded activist groups began when he accepted the position of prime minister which, Sargsyan said, was due to his firm belief that if the chief negotiator in the Artsakh negotiations was changed, the changes would be fateful.

Obviously the protests continued unabated and led to the realization that he must resign because the other option was to use force, which he was unwilling to do because there were too many people, including "many women and children" among the protestors.

So, he left peacefully.

Sargsyan also said that he handed the government to Karen Karapetyan when he resigned, not to Pashinyan.

Karapetyan had told him he was fully prepared to accept responsibility for whatever came.

Sargsyan said he doesn't blame Karapetyan.

As to the question of whether Pashinyan is his own project, as has been rumored, Sargsyan said "I wouldn't wish that upon my enemy."

He said he first learned of Pashinyan in the early 1990s when Pashinyan was printing deceptive and manipulated stories about the army.

Sargsyan met him again in the late 1990s in court and then again at Marriott Hotel in 2018 during the protests.

Sargsyan said that the people spreading the rumors about the capitulator (as he calls Pashinyan) being his project are the same ones who brought the capitulator to power and are now looking for a scapegoat for their sins.

The information about the negotiations on Artsakh was most insightful.

He said he's never been one to say "not one inch [of land]" - even in the 90s.

"Our red line was that Artsakh never be a part of Azerbaijan. Never. That was our red line - and we defended it until April 2018."
- Serzh Sargsyan

He distinguished between the negotiating style he had and that of Pashinyan: "the negotiations for us were always about what we were going to get, never what we were going to give."

And about Aliyev's statement that he beat Robert Kocharyan's and Serzh Sargsyan's army, Sargsyan said, "it's always been Aliyev's dream to beat us [Kocharyan and Sargsyan] but he never has. We beat his father in the 90s and he lost against me in 2016."

The more troubling information came when he was asked about this last war.

Sargsyan said that he went straight to Stepanakert and, through the mediation of Bako Sahakyan, Artsakh's ex-president, he asked if Arayik Harutyunyan would meet with him; Harutyunyan refused.

"Shushi was surrendered."
- Serzh Sargsyan

He said that despite all his connections, he still doesn't know who was responsible for the defense of Shushi - or of Hadrut.

Now Pashinyan's people are trying to blame Seyran Ohanyan for the loss of Shushi but he was just an advisor.

As for Turkey's role, Sargsyan noted that Turkey has always supported Azerbaijan, even in the early 1990s. Nevertheless, what was important here were the relationships that Armenia had with its strategic partners, especially Russia, the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs, and the CSTO.

All of these diplomatic relationships, Sargsyan affirmed, were obliterated by Pashinyan and his team, who not only embarrassed Russia by recalling General Khachaturov from the CSTO but also not greeting Putin when he visited Armenia, along with a long list of other failures.

In what was one of the most surprising revelations, Sargsyan said that Pashinyan was negotiating not only with Azerbaijan directly instead of through the OSCE Minsk Group, but Bako Sahakyan, Artsakh's president, was unaware of the negotiations, i.e. they were in secret.

There were also a few mind-blowing facts:

Sargsyan's military budget was going to be $1.3 billion, half of which was going to be spent between 2018 and 2020.

Also, by 2024 Armenia was to have 2,500 drones, 1,000 of which would be by 2020.

Sargsyan was very critical of the populistic rhetoric of Pashinyan. This succinct observation by him is the best summary:

"Bombast destroyed our home."

Sargsyan said he would not return to government as an official but that he has been in politics for three decades, continues to be in politics, and will continue to be in politics [as head of the HHK].

He said, at most, he would serve as an advisor to whoever leads Armenia next.

Ultimately, the interview showed any honest viewer what it means to have a serious, devoted, intelligent, and patriotic person as the leader of one's country.

Serzh Sargsyan is not only a political mastermind but he is an exemplar for Armenian public servants.

We should welcome the news that Sargsyan will remain in politics and will advise future governments, if asked. He has a wealth of knowledge and wisdom that will be indispensable for the Armenian Nation as we emerge from the current catastrophe.

Let us help ourselves, for once.

If you want to watch the interview, it was in two parts and you can do so here.

Part I:
Part II: