The Armenian authorities are attempting to shift responsibility for the defeat in the 44-day war to someone else, opposition With Honor faction MP Tigran Abrahamyan said on Monday, referring to the ruling Civil Contract faction’s move to set up a commission of inquiry into the war.

In a joint statement earlier on Friday, the opposition Hayastan (Armenia) and With Honor factions announced their intention to boycott the inquiry into the 2020 war, arguing that the authorities cannot “objectively examine their own actions.”

“It is clear that the commission of inquiry will be engaged in staging the “innocence” of the authorities,” they said.

In Abrahamyan’s words, the Armenian authorities are trying to make an impression that the commission is able to reveal the circumstances of the 44-day war, while the opposition is allegedly not interested in it.

"It is obvious to everyone that the main culprit for what happened is the authorities. Now they are setting up a commission and, in fact, proposing to determine the degree of their own guilt. It's just a farce, which aims to close the chapter of the 44-day war and shift the blame from the higher echelons of power to the lower echelon, to those who acted as opponents in the postwar period,” the MP told reporters. 

He noted that the issue of investigating the circumstances of the war remains on the opposition agenda, but it will be possible to achieve only after the change of power.