Armenian Government Still Reluctant to Disclose Karabakh Peace Plans

Ter-Petrosian renewed his calls last week following Pashinyan’s furious reaction to his September 22 statement blaming the premier for the six-week war and accusing him of “sacrificing” 5,000 Armenian lives. Other opposition leaders have their voice to the calls.

Most of the peace plans were based on so-called Madrid Principles originally put forward by the US, Russian and French mediators in 2007. This draft framework agreement, repeatedly modified in the following decade, upheld the Karabakh Armenians’ right to self-determination while calling for their withdrawal from seven Azerbaijani districts around Karabakh fully or partially occupied in the early 1990s. Karabakh’s internationally recognized status would be determined through a future referendum.

The Minsk Group co-chairs presented the conflicting sides with an updated version of the proposed peace deal in 2019, one year after Pashinyan came to power. The premier reluctantly acknowledged this fact in February after repeated denials.

Pashinyan also admitted late last month that he rejected that plan. He claimed that its implementation would have led to the “loss of Armenia’s independence and statehood.”

Armenian opposition leaders maintain that Pashinyan’s failure to accept the plan paved the way for the disastrous 2020 war and Azerbaijan’s subsequent recapture of Karabakh. Some of them seized upon his admission to accuse him of deliberately provoking the six-week war that left at least 3,800 Armenian soldiers dead.

Speaking to Factor.am earlier this month, Arman Yeghoyan, another senior pro-government lawmaker, said that the 2019 plan did not meet “the expectations of our people at the time.” He said it only called for the Armenian withdrawal from five of the seven Azerbaijani districts and the deployment of Russian peacekeepers in Karabakh.