Opening a weekly session of his cabinet, Pashinian stressed for three times that “there can be no government in Armenia apart from the government of Armenia.”
“If somebody in Armenia identifies themselves as a government [in exile,] then it’s a national security problem for Armenia,” he said. “I hope that the existence of that problem will not mean that our [security] bodies have underperformed in their work.”
The warning was clearly addressed to Samvel Shahramanian, the president of the self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR). In an interview with France’s Le Figaro daily published on Wednesday, Shahramanian said that all NKR’s bodies continue to formally operate after fleeing Karabakh along with the region’s entire ethnic Armenian population last September.
“This building where I am receiving you houses the presidential, legislative and judicial offices of Artsakh,” he said. “Lawmakers can meet here to vote.”
Shahramanian also reiterated that his September 28 decree liquidating the NKR is not valid. He said that he had to sign the decree in order to enable the Karabakh Armenians to safely flee to Armenia amid an Azerbaijani military offensive.
Pashinian’s political allies lashed at out the Karabakh leader in late December when he first declared the decree null and void. They accused him of putting Armenia’s national security at serious risk.
Pashinian has reportedly refused to meet Shahramanian and other Karabakh leaders since they took refuge in Armenia. He has repeatedly indicated that the Karabakh issue is closed for his administration. His detractors say that he is scared of angering Azerbaijan.
Ishkhan Saghatelian, a leader of Armenia’s main opposition Hayastan alliance, condemned Pashinian for “threatening” the Karabakh leadership and urged Armenians to counter a “new wave of repression” which he said could be unleashed against it.
“It is obvious that Artsakh's page is not closed and Pashinian and [Azerbaijani President Ilham] Aliyev are doing everything to find a pro-Azerbaijani solution to the issue,” Saghatelian wrote on Facebook. “Let me remind you again: the main threat to Armenia’s security is Nikol Pashinian, not Artsakh’s state institutions.”
Pashinian said on Thursday that Armenian security services should be prepared to take “appropriated measures” to also prevent “some circles forcibly displaced from Nagorno-Karabakh” from being used by unnamed “external forces.” He did not elaborate.
Earlier this week, Shahramanian, who generally keeps a low profile, attended the screening in Yerevan of a Russian film about the war in Ukraine which was organized by the Russian Embassy in Armenia. Russian Ambassador Sergei Kopyrkin described people attending the event as Russia’s friends.