Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan met with exiled leaders and ordinary refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh on Tuesday as part of ongoing consultations aimed at ramping up momentum for his opposition-backed bid to oust Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian.
“I want to make it very clear that the main goal of our movement is to have real peace,” Galstanyan said in his opening remarks at the meeting mostly held behind the closed doors.
He voiced support for the Karabakh Armenians’ right to return to their depopulated homeland recaptured by Azerbaijan last September. Armenia must assert that right in the international arena, he said.
Pashinian publicly recognized Azerbaijani sovereignty over Karabakh several months before Azerbaijan’s September 2023 military offensive. He has since repeatedly indicated that the Karabakh issue is closed for his administration.
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Pashinian threatened to crack down on Samvel Shahramanian, the Karabakh president now based in Yerevan, after the latter declared in March that the self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh Republic continues to exist despite the Azerbaijani control over the region. Armenian opposition leaders condemned Pashinian’s threats.
Shahramanian did not take part in the meeting with Galstanyan. But some members of his team and exiled mayors of Karabakh towns and villages were in attendance.
“We don’t aim to strip anyone of power or fight against concrete people,” Gagik Baghunts, the acting Karabakh parliament speaker, said after the meeting. “Our goal is to fight for something that is dear to us.”
Baghunts referred to the eventual repatriation of Karabakh’s ethnic Armenian population that fled to Armenia during the Azerbaijani takeover. Other, more outspoken Karabakh lawmakers feel that regime change in Yerevan is a necessary condition for that.
“I don’t think that changes in the lives of Artsakh Armenians would be very fast,” cautioned Baghunts. “I don’t see decisive changes at this stage.”
Pashinian’s political team seems concerned about Karabakh refugees’ participation in antigovernment rallies held by Archbishop Galstanyan. Some of its surrogates have openly warned them to stay away from the protests.