Former Artsakh official says Pashinyan cannot renounce right of return

A former senior Artsakh official has criticized Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s recent remarks on the future of displaced Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh, insisting that neither Pashinyan nor any Armenian leader has the authority to forfeit their right to return.

Speaking to reporters at the Artsakh Representation Office on Thursday, Artak Beglaryan, former Artsakh state minister and ombudsperson, said the right of return belongs solely to the people of Artsakh.

“Only the people of Artsakh can decide whether they want to return or not. The right is theirs alone,” Beglaryan said. “At this stage, the prime minister of Armenia can express only the Armenian government’s position. That position is unacceptable and undesirable for us.”

His comments follow Pashinyan's statements during a visit to Germany, where he suggested Armenia and Azerbaijan consider a joint roadmap that would close discussions on both Azerbaijan’s “Western Azerbaijan” narrative and the return of Armenians to Nagorno-Karabakh.

Beglaryan condemned the proposal, accusing the Armenian leadership of “putting the rights of Artsakh Armenians up for sale” and drawing a false equivalence between the displaced Artsakh people and Azerbaijanis who once lived in Armenia.

“There is no basis for such a comparison, neither in terms of why and how people left their homes, nor the scale, timing or legal grounds,” he said. Beglaryan argued that Azerbaijanis who left Armenia in the late 1980s departed voluntarily and without coercion, making the two situations fundamentally different.