The official, Arman Maralchian, was relieved of his duties on Wednesday one day after four Armenian soldiers were killed in fighting with Azerbaijani forces near the Armenian border village of Tegh.
Azerbaijani army units took up new positions in that area on March 30 after advancing into what Yerevan regards as sovereign Armenian territory. They completed a partial change of the route of the Lachin corridor connecting Armenia to Nagorno-Karabakh.
Pashinian and the National Security Service (NSS) initially downplayed the Azerbaijani advance but later acknowledged the loss of a large part of agricultural land and pastures belonging to Tegh’s farmers.
Pashinian’s political opponents blamed him for the fresh Azerbaijani territorial gains, saying that the Armenian army should have taken up positions along the Armenian side of the border section beforehand. They said that Pashinian not only failed to issue such an order but also declared on March 30 that from now on the Tegh area will be patrolled and protected by lightly armed border guards subordinate to the NSS, rather than army units.
The criticism intensified following Tuesday’s border clash, which also left at least three Azerbaijani soldiers dead.
Pashinian claimed on Wednesday that the deadly violence occurred because security officials failed to execute his “concrete instructions.”
“What happened should not have happened and it is clear, at least for me, that we need to investigate what happened there and why it happened,” he told the Armenian parliament.
Maralchian’s dismissal was announced shortly after Pashinian’s remarks. Armenian government officials and pro-government lawmakers declined to comment on it on Thursday.
Tigran Abrahamian, a senior lawmaker representing the opposition Pativ Unem bloc, said that Pashinian’s government is seeking to scapegoat security officials for its inability to defend the country.
“I believe that the sacking of the commander of the Border Guard Troops primarily stems from the authorities’ obsession with dodging political responsibility and finding scapegoats whom they can blame,” Abrahamian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.