Former Armenian FM criticizes Pashinyan over 'dangerous' remarks

Former Armenian Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian has hit out at Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, accusing him of making a “sensational” statement that endangers Armenia’s national interests and the future of its people.

In a Facebook post on Thursday, Oskanian said Pashinyan’s remarks could help legitimize Azerbaijan’s possible attacks on sovereign Armenian territory in the future. He drew a parallel with Pashinyan’s 2019 comment that “Artsakh is Armenia”, which he argued led to the 2020 war.

Oskanian said the prime minister had effectively suggested a mutual compromise that Azerbaijan cease referring to Armenia as “Western Azerbaijan” and stop discussing the settlement of Azerbaijanis there, while Armenia would in turn drop the issue of “the return of the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh”.

The former minister insisted the two issues were not comparable in diplomatic, legal or logical terms. According to him, international conventions and legal precedents grant peoples who previously held autonomous status, including Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians, the right to return to their homes and to discuss autonomy or even sovereignty.

Oskanian argued that by drawing an equivalence between the two matters, Pashinyan risked giving Baku space to raise claims on Armenia that have “no legitimacy under international law”.