Senior opposition lawmakers in Yerevan on Friday called on Armenia’s and Nagorno-Karabakh’s leaders to defuse their increasingly visible tensions through dialogue.
The tensions rose on Wednesday as Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian accused top Karabakh officials of spreading false claims about significant territorial concessions to Azerbaijan planned by his government. He also claimed that unlike his administration, Armenia’s former government never presented details of its negotiations with Azerbaijan to the authorities in Stepanakert.
Bako Sahakian, the Karabakh president, was quick to deny the claim. He also dismissed allegations about a “treasonous” conspiracy against Pashinian plotted in Stepanakert.
Deputies from the two opposition parties represented in Armenia’s parliament expressed concern over these verbal barbs, citing the lingering risk of a renewed war with Azerbaijan. Gevorg Gorgisian of the Bright Armenia Party (LHK) said Yerevan and Stepanakert should find “the right mechanism for communicating with each other.”
“Any tensions must be overcome because we can solve any issue only with joint efforts,” Gorgisian told RFE/RL’s Armenian service. “Artsakh (Karabakh) cannot exist separately, while Armenia, I think, will be in serious trouble if we have problems with Artsakh.”
Sergey Bagratian, a senior lawmaker from the Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK), suggested that the tensions stem from Yerevan’s and Stepanakert’s “different approaches” to resolving the Karabakh conflict. “We have had discussions at our meetings with Karabakh authorities, and those differences are clear to me,” he said. “The difference between the approaches is tactical.”
Gorgisian questioned the existence of such differences, however. “I don’t think that Armenia can have a leader who will try to come up with a variant of the conflict’s resolution unacceptable to the people of Artsakh,” he said.
Meanwhile, Andranik Kocharian, the pro-government chairman of the Armenian parliament committee on defense and security, blamed Karabakh leaders for the row. He said some of them are worried about ongoing reforms in Armenia.
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