Mirzoyan has faced a storm of opposition criticism since his ministry’s press office said earlier this month that “the issue was removed from the agenda of the normalization of interstate relations between the Armenia and Azerbaijan” because of a decree signed by Samvel Shahramanian, the Karabakh president, in September 2023 following an Azerbaijani military offensive that restored Baku’s control of Karabakh.
The decree liquidated the self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. Shahramanian 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.
In a statement to RFE/RL’s Armenian Service, Armenia’s Foreign Ministry also claimed that Karabakh’s leadership refused to hold talks with Azerbaijani officials “in third countries” three months before the Azerbaijani offensive. The talks organized by Western mediators were reportedly due to take place in Bulgaria’s capital Sofia in July 2023. Karabakh representatives said at the time that they were rescheduled for August 2023 but then cancelled by the Azerbaijani side.
The ministry’s claims reflecting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s and his associates’ Karabakh-related rhetoric were strongly condemned by Armenia’s main opposition groups. Their leaders accused the ministry of distorting facts in a bid to absolve Pashinian of blame for the fall of Karabakh. Karabakh Armenian politicians and activist also joined in the chorus of condemnation.
Mirzoyan doubled down on the claims when he reacted to the uproar during the Armenian government’s question-and-answer session in the parliament
“What do they want from us now?” he said, referring to the Karabakh leadership. “Are they mocking us? This question must finally be answered seriously. How long can they keep saying through their same newspapers that ‘Karabakh was sold out, Karabakh was sold out?’”
Mirzoyan, who is a senior member of the ruling Civil Contract party, also made clear that Pashinian’s government will not champion the cause of the displaced Karabakh Armenians on the international stage.
“The fact is that after the forced deportation and especially the proclamation of that well-known document on their self-dissolution, that agenda cannot continue for the simple reason that there are no Armenians living there [in Karabakh] whose rights we can talk about,” he said, answering a question from a pro-government lawmaker.
The text of an Armenian-Azerbaijani peace treaty essentially finalized by the two sides last month is understood to make no reference to Karabakh or its displaced population’s right to safely return home. Nevertheless, Baku has set a number of preconditions for signing it.