Armenia’s revanchist forces resurface Old regime vs. new architecture

The renewed push for a peace agenda between Azerbaijan and Armenia appears to have dealt a significant blow to revanchist factions in Yerevan. In particular, a series of tense, almost panicked attacks by former leaders of the Karabakh clan against Armenia’s current authorities is revealing.

Following the recent press conference of Armenia’s second president, Robert Kocharyan, another long-time “colleague”, Serzh Sargsyan, has resurfaced with a fresh round of absurd statements.

As usual, Armenia’s third president sharply criticised Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, accusing him once again of “surrendering Karabakh.” Sargsyan also claimed that the Almaty Declaration had no impact on Karabakh negotiations and invoked the U.S. Congress in his remarks.

"The fact that the Karabakh issue remains unresolved is at least indicated by the new initiative in the U.S. Congress," Serzh Sargsyan claimed—an argument that is, frankly, absurd.

Why absurd? First, because an initiative from a single committee in the U.S. Congress is merely evidence that the Armenian lobby’s substantial financial investments are “working.” In turn, this provides seasoned war criminals like Sargsyan and his associates with an opportunity to continue exploiting the “Karabakh card” domestically, creating illusions among the Armenian population and provoking citizens toward a new war with Azerbaijan, as well as further destabilising the region.

Second, Nikol Pashinyan removed Serzh Sargsyan from power in 2018—without much difficulty—because Armenian society had grown weary of the Karabakh clan’s rule. The current political attacks by these former clan leaders against Pashinyan have a single objective: to regain power and derail the ongoing negotiation process with Azerbaijan.

It is clear that the renewed activity of the “old guard of the Karabakh clan” against the policies of Armenia’s authorities is a reaction to a recent social media post by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, in which he publicly accused all three former presidents of Armenia of corruption and political adventurism.

At the end of last month, Pashinyan published a sharp post on his Facebook page, accusing the country’s former leaders of election fraud and claiming that they were responsible for pushing Armenia into the abyss:

"Ter-Petrosyan dragged Armenia into a war and fled. Robert Kocharyan dragged Karabakh into a war and fled to Armenia. Serzh Sargsyan fled Karabakh even earlier to enjoy the manat collected at the Lachin checkpoint," wrote Nikol Pashinyan.

Speaker of the National Assembly, Alen Simonyan, also criticised the press conference of Armenia’s second president, Robert Kocharyan, on his Telegram channel, calling him a political corpse: "Don’t be afraid—you’ve long been political corpses anyway, with nothing to lose, and at least this way there’s a chance to see which of you is more of a corpse."

In response to these openly anti-government moves and actions by opposition figures, the Armenian authorities have so far limited themselves to verbal statements, avoiding radical pressure tactics. However, it is possible that by next year—especially ahead of the parliamentary elections—the policy of “soft” pressure could give way to harsher measures. Whether this approach will act as a deterrent for the supporters of war with Azerbaijan remains to be seen.