The former chief of the Armenian army’s General Staff Onik Gasparyan has come up with a proposal to immediately  establish a parliamentary investigative commission to look into the questions surrounding the 44-day Nagorno Karabakh war in 2020. In a letter addressed to the Speaker of the National Assembly Ararat Mirzoyan, the Chair of the NA Standing Committee on Defense and Security as well the heads of parliamentary factions, Gasparyan notes the work of the Commission will allow to thoroughly study the circumstances of the recent war, learn lessons for getting prepared for possible future military actions as well as diffuse public tensions. 

In his letter, Gasparyan reminds that five months have passed since the war launched by Azerbaijani-Turkish coalition against Artsakh and over the past period numerous questions are pending answers among different layers of the public concerning  events that had taken place before the war, in the course of the active military actions and after the ceasefire. 

"The General Staff of the RA Armed Forces exercised maximum restraint over the past period, avoiding publicizing any information concerning the war and containing state secret, however, the increasing speculations, irresponsible statements being made by some of state and political figures and the leakage of secret information necessities the legal regulation of the state investigation process, concerning all circumstances surrounding the recent war," the letter signed by the ex-Army chief said.

To note, Gasparyan's proposal comes after Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan denied a claim that the former chief of the army called for immediate action to stop the war in Artsakh shortly after it launched on 27 September 2020. Pashinyan cited Gasparyan's report delivered at the meeting of the Security Council on September 30, where the latter had allegedly said that“the adversary does not have any advancement, our army is fulfilling its tasks and will continue to do so till the end”. The National Security Council later disclosed decrypted documents with parts of Gasparyan's speech made during the September 30 meeting, while Gasparyan himself suggested the records could be falsified and presented in a favorable way for the authorities.