Under the current Constitution, a dual citizen—someone who holds citizenship of Armenia and another country—does not have the right to be elected to the National Assembly or to serve as a minister or prime minister. At the same time, Armenian law allows dual citizens to engage in political activity and to participate in elections as voters.
Nikol Pashinyan has no legal grounds to refuse to register the “Strong Armenia” alliance for the elections, provided that Samvel Karapetyan is not included on its list. Still, it cannot be ruled out that the prime minister’s pocket institutions—the Central Electoral Commission and the Constitutional Court—might take that unlawful step by deliberately “mixing up” the legal norms that distinguish between what is permitted and what is not.
Does Vladimir Putin not know this? That is highly unlikely. And if he does know, then what exactly were they discussing?
It seems to me that, in public, the two leaders were talking about one thing while actually referring to something adjacent—something they discussed behind closed doors. Samvel Karapetyan is in detention not because of his Russian passport, but because Pashinyan fears competing with the political force he leads. Putin and Pashinyan were circling around the real issue, but in the open part of their meeting they avoided addressing it directly.
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The same applies to Nagorno-Karabakh. First, Putin tried to frame the issue as if Armenia were dissatisfied because the CSTO had failed to defend Karabakh. But our grievances are different: (a) that Russian peacekeepers failed to fulfill their obligations and allowed the blockade and the ethnic cleansing of Armenians in Karabakh, and (b) that the CSTO did nothing when Azerbaijani forces invaded Armenia’s sovereign territory. The Russian president knows perfectly well what we are dissatisfied with, yet he diverts the discussion.
On the other hand, in Prague, Pashinyan stated that Nagorno-Karabakh is part of Azerbaijan—not because Putin had said the same earlier, but because he was persuaded to do so by Charles Michel, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and Ilham Aliyev. Pashinyan believed (and perhaps still believes) that by doing so, he would make it easier to hold on to power.
In short, both sides were saying one thing while meaning something entirely different. As is often the case with politicians of all calibers.
Aram ABRAHAMYAN
