By Shoghik Galstian
YEREVAN (Azatutyun) — Four opposition lawmakers have taken the Armenian government to court, challenging its decision to deny them confidential access to the text of a draft peace deal discussed by Armenia and Azerbaijan.
The government had reluctantly allowed them to read a copy of the document, marked “top secret,” in December 2023. Without disclosing its provisions, the deputies representing the main opposition Hayastan alliance said afterwards that it only reinforced their concerns that Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan is planning further unilateral concessions to Baku without securing anything in return.
Pashinyan responded by saying that they will no longer have access to the draft treaty which he hoped to negotiate before the end of this year. Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan signed a relevant order in March. Mirzoyan’s press office implicitly accused the Armenian opposition of undermining the negotiation process and making “wrong and arbitrary public interpretations of the document.”
The Hayastan lawmakers announced on Monday, December 2, that they have asked a Yerevan court to overturn that decision. One of them, Artur Khachatryan, dismissed the official justification of the ban as “pathetic.”
“We acted within the law,” Khachatryan told journalists. “Otherwise, I would be facing criminal prosecution at the very least.”
