Strong Condemnation and Rebuke after Foreign Ministry Blames Artsakh’s Leaders

The government of Artsakh was among several entities and opposition forces that strongly condemned and rebuked the government of Armenia for blaming Artsakh’s leaders for Yerevan’s decision to halt the discussion of the Artsakh issue during peace talks with Azerbaijan.

During a press conference with the German president last week, President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan claimed that up until January 2024 Yerevan sought to include “the fate of the so-called Nagorno-Karabakh Republic” into a draft peace treaty discussed with Baku. Aliyev explained that was the main sticking point in Armenian-Azerbaijani peace talks.

In response to a inquiry for clarification on Aliyev’s statement for Azatutyun.am, Armenia’s foreign ministry on Saturday said that the Artsakh issue “was removed from the agenda of the normalization of interstate relations between the Armenia and Azerbaijan” blamingArtsakh President Samvel Shahramanyan for a signing a decree in September 2023 following the brutal offensive by Azerbaijan’s military that forced the displacement of Artsakh’s Armenian population.

Shahramanyan invalidated the decree in December 2023, saying that he had to sign it in order to enable Artsakh’s endangered population to safely flee to Armenia. He also argued that the decree, apparently demanded by Baku, was unconstitutional in the first place.

Armenia’s foreign ministry went on to blame the Artsakh leadership for rejecting direct negotiations with Azerbaijan, mediated by third countries.

“We have repeatedly stated in the past that in the course of negotiations with Azerbaijan, Armenia sought to ensure the security and rights of the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh, including the establishment of an international mechanism to resolve these issues,” the foreign ministry said in its statement.

“Attempts to organize meetings between representatives of Azerbaijan and Nagorno-Karabakh in third countries, which were rejected by Nagorno-Karabakh, were aimed at the same,” the foreign ministry added.

The Artsakh Information Center, the official press service of the Artsakh government, condemned Armenia’s foreign ministry, arguing that the decree referred to in its statement did not hold any legal significance or basis.

The AIC said the foreign ministry’s statement was an “effort to divert the public’s attention from real issues.”

“It turns out that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Armenia, referring to a document that has no credence legally, is at the same time ignoring Artsakh’s Declaration of Independence, Constitution and laws, behaving in the same manner in terms of its obligations Artsakh and its people, including as a its guarantor of security,” the AIC said in a statement published on social media.

The statement also argued that Artsakh’s Constitution stipulates that no official, including the head of state, is authorized to dissolve the republic. “Therefore, no one can dissolve the state created through a referendum. Only the people of Artsakh have that authority,” the AIC statement emphasized.

The statement went on to stress that the document in question—the decree—was signed under duress, at a time when the lives of all Artsakh Armenians were under threat.

The Artsakh government’s information service urged the Armenian authorities to refrain from “exploiting” the said document.

Armenian opposition forces also condemned the foreign ministry for its callous statement.

“Even Aliyev, in his remarks on the occupation of Artsakh and the final closure of the Artsakh issue, does not refer to the illegal document on the dissolution of Artsakh’s state bodies,” Ishkhan Saghatelyan the chair of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation Supreme Council of Armenia said in a Facebook post on Monday. “Therefore, the efforts of Aliyev’s Armenian advocates are pathetic and futile.”