Pashinyan responds to O'Brien: 'We were never satisfied with the US administration's response'

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has responded to recent remarks by James O’Brien, former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, who stated that the August 8 agreements in Washington largely favored Azerbaijan, leaving Armenia in a vulnerable position.

Speaking at a press briefing on Thursday, Pashinyan highlighted that O’Brien lost his senior post during the Trump administration and suggested that he now faces the challenge of explaining why the Trump administration achieved what his own team could not.

“O’Brien’s statement is, on the one hand, very strange, and on the other hand, not strange at all. If he is speaking about Armenia’s vulnerabilities, I must stress that, unfortunately, Armenia was at its most vulnerable precisely during his and his colleagues’ tenure,” Pashinyan said, citing the developments in 2021, 2022 and 2023.

“Armenia was never satisfied with the response or the efforts made by the U.S. administration at the time to support the peace agenda in the South Caucasus,” he stressed.

“O’Brien is someone who lost his job as a result of all this. I am not going to comment on his emotional statements. If he lost his position, he should engage in self-reflection rather than trying to place the blame for his dismissal on Armenia,” Pashinyan remarked.

He further insisted that Armenia today is in its least vulnerable state since independence. “Since 1991, Armenia has never been in a less vulnerable position than it is today. It may be the lack of sensitivity to geopolitical and regional nuances that prevented Mr. O’Brien from continuing his work at the U.S. State Department,” Pashinyan added.