Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian added his voice to the Armenian Foreign Ministry’s criticism of the unprecedented ban.
The several dozen deputies representing Armenia’s two main opposition groups headed to Karabakh on Tuesday as part of their campaign against far-reaching Armenian concessions to Azerbaijan. They announced earlier in the day a four-day boycott of sessions of the National Assembly.
Russian peacekeepers manning a checkpoint in the Lachin corridor connecting Armenia and Karabakh did not allow the lawmakers to proceed to Stepanakert after checking their documents.
The Foreign Ministry in Yerevan expressed concern over the peacekeepers’ actions, saying that they run counter to the terms of the Russian-brokered ceasefire that stopped the Armenian-Azerbaijani war in November 2020.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian echoed the criticism when he spoke in the parliament on Wednesday. He called the ban a “cause for bewilderment.”
“The Russian side has clarified that provocations could have occurred and that their entry to Nagorno-Karabakh was deemed not expedient in order to prevent those provocations,” Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan said for his part.
Opposition leaders continued to claim, however, that the Armenian authorities engineered the travel ban as part of their secret agreements with Azerbaijan.
Armenia - Opposition deputy Gegham Manukian at a parliament session in Yerevan, October 27, 2021
“Our attempted visit yesterday accidentally exposed some secret agreements to restrict Armenian deputies’ and other officials’ trips to Artsakh,” Gegham Manukian of the Hayastan alliance told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
Manukian again argued that shortly before reaching the Lachin checkpoint he and the other opposition parliamentarian were stopped by Armenian border guards and had their personal data collected. He suggested that it was immediately passed on to the Russians.
“We were told yesterday that this is the first day of such an [Armenian] checkpoint operating there,” he said. “We found out today that the checkpoint is no longer there. The border guards probably set up the checkpoint because of our trip to Artsakh.”
Manukian also pointed out that lawmakers representing Pashinian’s Civil Contract party condemned the trip when it was announced by Hayastan’s parliamentary leader, Seyran Ohanian, on Tuesday morning.
One of the pro-government lawmakers, Vigen Khachatrian, dismissed the opposition allegations. “I have the impression that they expected that [travel ban,]” he said.
Pashinian and Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev agreed to start preparing for an Armenian-Azerbaijani “peace treaty” when they met in Brussels on April 6. Armenian opposition leaders portrayed this as a further sign that Pashinian is ready to help Azerbaijan regain control over Karabakh.