YEREVAN (RFE/RL) — Families of Armenian soldiers killed in last year war with Azerbaijan have expressed outrage at a “large-scale and colorful” celebration of Armenia upcoming Independence Day promised by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.
Pashinyan announced on Wednesday, September 8, that such festivities will be held in Yerevan’s central Republic Square on September 21 to mark the 30th anniversary of the country’s declaration of independence from the disintegrating Soviet Union.
“That will be first and foremost dedicated to our martyrs who sacrificed their lives for Armenia’s independence, security and sovereignty,” he said during a cabinet meeting.
The announcement appears to have angered many relatives of the Armenian victims of the six-week war in Nagorno-Karabakh that broke out almost one year ago.
Some of them took to social media to condemn it and even threatened to disrupt the planned event. They said that any pompous celebrations would be highly inappropriate in a country which is still mourning the war dead and has not yet found, identified and buried all of its fallen soldiers.
According to official figures, about 3,800 Armenian soldiers were killed and more than 200 others went missing or were taken prisoner during the hostilities stopped by a Russian-brokered ceasefire last November. Karabakh Armenian search teams still recover, on a virtually daily basis, soldiers’ remains from former battlefields now controlled by Azerbaijani forces.
