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The office of the Representation of Artsakh in Armenia (Photo via Facebook)
Armenia & Karabakh

Armenia Moves to Reclaim Building in Yerevan from Nagorno-Karabakh Authorities

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The Armenian Mirror-Spectator
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By Arshaluys Barseghyan

The Prosecutor General’s Office of Armenia has filed a lawsuit demanding the invalidation of the state registration of the property rights of the Nagorno-Karabakh government over its permanent representation in Yerevan.

The rights, according to the lawsuit, were granted on January 31, 2007.

The news of the legal case first spread on Wednesday, July 16, ahead of a press briefing by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on the same day.

Asked about the move, Pashinyan stated that “it is property that should belong to […] Armenia.”

“I’ve said it directly: I cannot allow a second state to exist within the Republic of Armenia. I said this before and hoped the message would be understood,”  Pashinyan said, adding that “otherwise, the state must take action.”

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Armenian officials have been hostile to proposals for a Nagorno-Karabakh government in exile based in Armenia, warning it could be used by Azerbaijan as a pretext to take military action against Armenia.

In mid-November 2023, the Speaker of the Armenian Parliament, Alen Simonyan, said that establishing a government in exile would be a “direct threat and a blow to Armenia’s security.”

After Azerbaijan attacked Nagorno-Karabakh in September 2023, forcing its government to surrender within a day of the assault, President Samvel Shahramanyan issued a decree to dissolve Nagorno-Karabakh and all of its institutions.

The building in Yerevan has since served as a seat for the region’s former officials, where refugees reportedly go for various issues.

“It is definitely a political order, it was not a surprise, it was expected,” Artak Beglaryan, a former Nagorno-Karabakh State Minister, told RFE/RL.

Beglaryan further insisted that Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev were “collaboratively destroying everything related to Artsakh [Nagorno-Karabakh].”

The Armenian Mirror-Spectator

“In parallel, Aliyev is destroying the buildings of Artsakh’s [Nagorno-Karabakh] state institutions in Stepanakert. And now, Pashinyan’s government wants to take away the only building of Artsakh’s [Nagorno-Karabakh] state institutions located in Yerevan,” Beglaryan said.

Azerbaijani telegram channels have published images appearing to show the demolition of the former building of the Parliament of Nagorno-Karabakh in the center of Stepanakert (pic.twitter.com/v8FP9wbc0O — OC Media (@OCMediaorg) March 4, 2024).

Beglaryan insisted that the Armenian government’s move was illegal, it was done “at Azerbaijan’s request,” as well as “an act of revenge” against the former authorities of the region “for not aligning with Pashinyan’s political course.”

(A journalist since 2016, Arshaluys Barseghyan specializes in fact-checking and open-source investigations, with a focus on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, politics, and social and gender issues. She is also a strong advocate for media literacy and closely follows Armenia’s media landscape. The above article first appeared in OC Media on July 17.)

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