Armenia’s Security Council today published a recording of the declassified portion of the transcribed minutes of a September 30, 2020 meeting featuring the remarks of then Chief of the General Staff of the Armenian Armed Forces Onik Gasparyan.

Gaspryan and the government have traded accusations as to who said what, or knew what, during last year’s war in Karabakh.

Gasparyan, who was fired from the job in February of this year when he called for the resignation of Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan, maintains that by the fourth day of the war it was clear to him that Armenian resources were near depletion and that he warned the Security Council that if the fighting didn’t cease, Armenia would face a weaker position for future negotiations.

Gasparyan claims he constantly informed Pashinyan and the Security Council about the situation of the ground.

The government, however, has pushed back, claiming that Gasparyan did not sound any such alarm regarding Armenia’s worsening military situation.

The recording released today is limited to a few sentences in which Gasparyan, addressing PM Pashinyan, says, “Basically, the military situation remains unchanged. There has been no forward movement. Nevertheless, the armed forces are fulfilling its mission. We staged a small counter-offensive in the Jabrayil direction. We had some victories. This is the situation. We will continue to fulfill our mission until the end.”

Gasparyan, referring to what’s been published of late, has demanded that the full minutes of the September 30 meeting be made public, including the closing remarks by him and Armenian President Armen Sarkissian.

Gasparyan has also called for the creation of a parliamentary fact-finding commission to investigate all aspects of the war.

In an April 16 statement addressed to National Assembly Speaker Ararat Mirzoyan, Gasparyan writes:

“The public media is flooded with various information, assessments, revelations, conspiracy theories. This has recently been compounded by partially declassified information by some state bodies (in particular, selected excerpts from the minutes of the Security Council sittings published by the Security Council on April 15, which do not fully reflect the content of the reports, thus deliberately distorting reality. This is a manifestation of how low the authorities in Armenia will sink.

“All this has become a real threat to our national security, undermines our public solidarity, demoralizes our armed forces, and, as a result, makes our state vulnerable to further possible encroachments by the enemy.”