Samvel Shahramanian’s decree came just over a week after Azerbaijan’s military offensive that forced Karabakh’s small army to lay down weapons and restored Azerbaijani control over the region. Shahramanian said afterwards that he had to sign the decree in order to stop the hostilities and enable the Karabakh Armenians to safely flee to Armenia.
Shahramanian’s adviser Vladimir Grigorian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service Friday that the Karabakh leader invalidated the controversial decree on October 19 and that that all senior Karabakh officials will keep performing their duties after January 1 without getting paid.
Shahramanian met with those officials later on Friday. He was reported to tell them that “there is no document in the legal framework of the Republic of Artsakh that mandates the dissolution of state institutions.”
Armenia’s political leadership reacted furiously to the development through senior lawmakers representing Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s Civil Contract party.
“Who is Samvel Shahramanian to sign a decree in Yerevan?” one of them, Artur Hovannisian, wrote on Facebook. “There is only one government in Armenia. Any attempt to challenge this will be seen as anti-state activity, outlawed and prompt the toughest measures from the state.”
Armenia - Deputies from the ruling Civil Contract party talk on the parliament floor, Yerevan, March 1, 2023.
Hovannisian went on to accuse Karabakh’s Yerevan-based leadership of “trying to involve Armenia in a new military provocation.”
“Those who signed Karabakh’s capitulation must be aware that any document signed in Yerevan regarding Karabakh has no legal force,” warned another pro-government lawmaker, Lilit Minasian.
Gevorg Papoyan, a deputy chairman of Pashinian’s party, labeled Shahramanian as a “forcibly displaced person” who is no different from the more than 100,000 other Karabakh Armenians who took refuge in Armenia following Azerbaijan’s recapture of the region.
Armenian opposition representatives as well as some Karabakh figures rejected the harsh criticism and warnings voiced by Pashinian’s political team. Artak Beglarian, Karabakh’s former human rights ombudsman, dismissed the Armenian authorities’ implicit claims that Azerbaijan could use continued activities of Karabakh bodies as a pretext to attack Armenia as well.
“If you do not allow Artsakh’s state institutions and officials to represent the rights and interests of their people on various issues while you yourselves are not going to do it in terms of collective rights, then who should deal with those issues?” he wrote.
Armenia - Samvel Shahramanian meets other Karabakh officials in Yerevan, December 22, 2023.
Beglarian also clarified that contrary to what Grigorian said, Shahramanian did not specifically sign the October 19 decree to scrap his September 28 decision. He suggested that the Karabakh leader simply made clear that he had no legal authority to disband the unrecognized republic and its government bodies.
The Shahramanian aide resigned shortly after his interview with RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. He gave no clear reason for the decision, saying only that his comments “do not reflect any official position at this point.”
Even before those comments, Pashinian’s allies said that Karabakh government bodies should be dissolved. Parliament speaker Alen Simonian claimed on November 16 that they would pose a “direct threat to Armenia’s security.”
In its December 10 statement, the Karabakh legislature balked at attempts to “finally close the Artsakh issue” while signaling its desire to discuss them with Pashinian’s government.