Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia
Your Excellency:We write to you on behalf of the Committee on Academic Freedom of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) to express our concern about the reported forced resignation of Dr. Edita Gzoyan, Director of the Armenian Genocide Museum Institute-Foundation (AGMI). We urge that she be reinstated immediately and that your office guarantee the academic integrity of the institute.
MESA was founded in 1966 to promote scholarship and teaching on the Middle East and North Africa. The preeminent organization in the field, MESA publishes the International Journal of Middle East Studies and has close to 2800 members worldwide. MESA is committed to ensuring academic freedom and freedom of expression both within the region and in connection with the study of the region in North America and elsewhere.
Dr. Gzoyan, who was elected to her position in 2024 by the AGMI Board of Trustees, has played a crucial leadership role in fostering new scholarship on the Armenian Genocide, modernizing the museum, and integrating young Armenian academics into the global community of genocide scholars. Her own scholarship on the transfer of children during the Armenian Genocide has been published in leading European and American journals. She has brought positive international attention to the AGMI.
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Therefore, we are troubled by press reports and communications with colleagues in Armenia that Dr. Gzoyan was forced to resign following an official visit to the AGMI by United States Vice President J.D. Vance on 10 February 2026. During that visit, she shared several institute publications, including one on the coverage of massacres and attacks on the Armenians of Transcaucasia early in the 20th century in the American press that references Nagorno-Karabakh, and led Mr. Vance and his wife, Mrs. Usha Bala Vance, on a tour of the museum and the Armenian Genocide monument. At a press conference on 12 March 2026 you indicated that you demanded her resignation because of the inclusion of institute books about Nagorno-Karabakh, describing the books as “provocative” and contrary to Armenia’s foreign policy. Subsequently, you by-passed established procedure and appointed a member of your staff to the role of director and replaced members of the independent board of trustees with political allies.
We understand that Armenia is in a difficult and complex situation as it seeks to end years of conflict with Azerbaijan and achieve normalization. The erasure of historical memory, however, cannot be made contingent on short-term political needs. Among the purposes of the establishment of the AGMI in the first place was confronting the denial of the Armenian Genocide. Protecting the academic freedom of scholars associated with organizations like the AGMI, among the world’s leading research institutions dedicated to the study of the history and memory of the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire, and an important scholarly resource, is essential. We ask that you immediately reinstate Dr. Gzoyan to her position.
We urge the government of Armenia to act swiftly to remedy what appears to be an unjustifiable interference with scholarly independence, and to restore the confidence of the international academic community in the AGMI’s institutional integrity and Armenia’s commitment to academic freedom and basic human rights.
Sincerely,
Ussama Makdisi
MESA President
Professor, University of California, Berkeley
Judith E. Tucker
Chair, Committee on Academic Freedom
Professor Emerita, Georgetown University
Cc: Zhanna Andreasyan, Minister of Education, Science, Culture and Sports, Republic of Armenia
Anahit Manasyan, Human Rights Defender of the Republic of Armenia
Michael O’Flaherty, Commissioner for Human Rights, Council of Europe
International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS)
Committee on Academic Freedom