Analyst: Pashinyan deliberately sacrificed Artsakh

Political analyst Suren Surenyants has strongly criticized the Armenian Foreign Ministry's recent statement as manipulative and consistent with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s efforts to deflect responsibility for the fall of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh).

In a statement on Friday, the Foreign Ministry claimed that Armenia had consistently worked to ensure the rights and security of Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians, including through international mechanisms. "After the forced displacement of Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh and the decree on its dissolution, the issue was removed from the agenda of the normalization of interstate relations between the Republic of Armenia and the Republic of Azerbaijan," it added.

Surenyants rejected the narrative in a social media post, saying the real turning point came on 6 October 2022, when Pashinyan recognized Artsakh as part of Azerbaijan at a summit in Prague. 

"It led to the removal of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict from the normalization process between Armenia and Azerbaijan," he wrote.

“Pashinyan deliberately sacrificed Artsakh not to achieve peace, but to justify a shift in Armenia’s strategic orientation,” the analyst added.