Armenian, Karabakh Leaders Make Joint Public Appearance After Row

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian made a joint public appearance alongside Nagorno-Karabakh’s President Bako Sahakian on Tuesday for the first time since lambasting the authorities in Stepanakert.

Pashinian and Sahakian attended, together with Armenia’s President Armen Sarkissian, a meeting in Yerevan of the board of trustees of the All-Armenian Fund Hayastan, a mostly Diaspora-funded charity. But they did not exchange words during or after the meeting.

Sahakian refused to talk to reporters. His spokesman, Davit Babayan, would not say whether the two leaders met and discussed recent developments ahead of the Hayastan gathering.

“There just can’t be tense relations between Mother Armenia and Artsakh and especially between their leaders,” Babayan said instead.

Pashinian charged last month that unnamed “forces representing the former corrupt system” are intent on provoking a war with Azerbaijan, losing “some territories” and blaming that defeat on Armenia’s current leadership. He effectively pointed the finger at Karabakh Armenian leaders when journalists asked him to elaborate on the allegation on June 5.

Pashinian accused them 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 Karabakh Armenian leadership. Sahakian denied those claims.

The row followed a written petition by Sahakian and his predecessor Arkadi Ghukasian which facilitated the release from prison of Robert Kocharian, Armenia’s Karabakh-born former president facing coup and corruption charges. Pashinian criticized the petition last week.

Babayan claimed that Sahakian’s relationship with Pashinian remains “businesslike.” “We are obliged to have normal, friendly relations with each other,” he told RFE/RL’s Armenian service.

“There are individuals who are not friends or related to each other and may have very different backgrounds,” said the Karabakh official. “But when they become leaders, whether in Armenia or Artsakh, they must treat each other like brothers, closest friends and loved ones. It’s imperative for all of us. How can there be problems between Artsakh and Mother Armenia?”