Profile: Who is Vitaly Balasanyan? Reasons behind detention of Baku’s main negotiator

Separatist Karabakh's former "security council secretary" Vitaly Balasanyan was detained on July 13, after a search in his house in Asgaran district. Along with him, his son and cousin were also detained, but they were later released, while Balasanyan was hospitalised for heart problems.

He was taken into custody on suspicion of using force against policemen during a search in his house. Weapons and ammunition were found in his house, according to the Armenian media.

Balasanyan and his son are being suspected of money laundering to the tune of over $180,000 dollars. Under the criminal case, Balasanyan took agricultural loans in his son's name, though it was not used to purchase beehives, and thus inflicted major damage.

A criminal case was launched against Balasanyan in mid-February and was based on abuses committed during Balasanyan's tenure as the "security council secretary".

Baku’s main negotiator

Balasanyan is believed to be a man with whom official Baku maintained contacts to verify positions of the separatists following the 44-day war 2020 war between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

He communicated with the Armenians in Lachin, urging them to calmly leave the city and villages around, without causing damage to housing. For this reason, Balasanyan was accused of betrayal and following orders from Baku.

In December 2022, he was "authorised" by the Karabakh separatist leader to meet with representatives of Azerbaijan with the mediation and participation of the Russian peacekeeping contingent in Khojaly. The contingent of 1,960 Russian peacekeepers was deployed in parts of Azerbaijan’s Karabakh region, partially populated by ethnic Armenians, following the 44-day war.

In March 2022, Balasanyan negotiated gas supplies with Baku after the main pipeline supplying gas from Armenia to Karabakh was damaged in Azerbaijan-controlled territory. In August, he met with Russian peacekeepers and representatives of the Azerbaijani government in Lachin ahead of the handover of the town and three adjacent villages to Azerbaijan.

Balasanyan also acted as the main negotiator with the Armenian pro-opposition armed group which take police officers hostage in Yerevan in July 2016. The group demanded the resignation of the-then President Serzh Sargsyan and the release of jailed opposition leader Zhirair Sefilyan.

Political crisis in Karabakh

A rift between the Armenian government and the separatist Karabakh authorities deepened after Yerevan stopped championing the Karabakh Armenians’ right to self-determination in 2022.

Balasanyan, 63, served as a field commander in the First Karabakh War in the early 1990s and led Karabakh's security council secretary post in 2016-2019 and 2020-2023. He resigned in 2019 over differences with the government of Nikol Pashinyan and was reinstated in December 2020.

On January 7, 2023, Balasanyan was replaced by Ararat Melkumyan, who served as the first deputy chief of Karabakh's national security service, which is different from the security council and has different competencies.

The dismissal of Balasanyan testifies to the intensified contradictions in the leadership of the separatists. Local observers have repeatedly noted serious contradictions between Balasanyan and former separatist state minister, Ruben Vardanyan.

Melkumyan fought in the First Karabakh War in the early 1990s and in four-day clashes in April 2016, and was awarded the separatists' highest title of "hero of Artsakh" for his "exceptional services" during the Second Karabakh War. It’s worth noting that Azerbaijan opened a criminal case against Balasanyan following the massacre of hundreds of ethnic Azerbaijanis in the Karabakh town of Khojaly in February 1992.

Failing to help Karabakh separatists

The detention of Balasanyan, who has "warm" relations with the Russian peacekeepers and could have taken "countermeasures" against the protest, organized by the Karabakh separatists on July 14, against the installation of the Lachin checkpoint, was part of the anti-Russian sentiment in Karabakh, according to the Armenian media.

The protesters accused the Russian peacekeeping force, temporally deployed in Karabakh, of failing to help Karabakh Armenians amid the erection of the checkpoint.

Azerbaijan had been insisting on installing a checkpoint on the border with Armenia amidst the illegal extraction of natural resources in Karabakh and arms transfers from Armenia to the region.

On April 23, Azerbaijan installed a checkpoint on the border with Armenia at the entrance of the Lachin road in order to prevent the continued systematic and large-scale misuse of the road by Armenia and to put an end to the transportation of troops and military supplies from Armenia to Karabakh.

Over 2,700 anti-personnel landmines produced by Armenia in 2021 and detected in the Lachin and Kalbajar districts of Azerbaijan since August 2022 were illegally transported to the Karabakh region through the Lachin road.

Earlier, in February, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev proposed installing checkpoints on the Armenia-Azerbaijan border to facilitate the border delimitation process, but Armenia rejected the proposal. Meanwhile, Pashinyan said in May that he recognises Azerbaijani sovereignty over Karabakh, provided that Baku would ensure the region's rights and security.

On July 11, Baku "suspended" the operation of the Lachin checkpoint because of repeated attempts by Armenians to smuggle various goods from Armenia into Karabakh. The checkpoint resumed operation for Karabakh patients travelling to Armenia with the mediation of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on July 14.

Azerbaijan had also closed the checkpoint following a shooting incident on June 15 and reopened it only for patients and medical supplies on June 25. In the meantime, Baku suggests that Karabakh Armenians travel to Azerbaijan's Agdam District for food provision and other needs instead of going to Armenia.