By Ruzanna Stepanian
YEREVAN (Azatutyun) — Armenia’s government has drawn strong condemnation from the opposition after saying that Nagorno-Karabakh’s leaders are to blame for its decision to stop raising the Karabakh issue in peace talks with Azerbaijan.
In a weekend statement to RFE/RL’s Armenian Service, the Foreign Ministry in Yerevan said “the issue was removed from the agenda of the normalization of interstate relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan” because of a decree signed by Samvel Shahramanyan, the Karabakh president, in September 2023 following an Azerbaijani military offensive that restored Baku’s control of the region.
The decree liquidated the self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. Shahramanyan invalidated it in December 2023, saying that he had to sign it in order to enable Karabakh’s endangered population to safely flee to Armenia. He also argued that the decree, apparently demanded by Baku, was unconstitutional in the first place.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s political allies accused the Karabakh leader of putting Armenia’s national security at serious risk after he declared the decree null and void. Pashinyan has since repeatedly indicated that the Karabakh issue is closed for his administration.
In its statement, the Foreign Ministry also claimed that Karabakh’s leadership refused to hold talks with Azerbaijani officials “in third countries” three months before the Azerbaijani offensive.
