Why Armenia’s former leaders reject reconciliation with Azerbaijan Fear over peace

The closer parliamentary elections get in Armenia, the more frequently statements emerge from the Armenian opposition that can only be described as absurd. At the same time, one cannot fail to notice the fear of peace with Azerbaijan expressed in these statements by those who, through their policies, once plunged the region into a protracted conflict and isolated the neighbouring country. To avoid being accused of exaggeration, we will provide two recent statements from the “leaders” of the Armenian opposition as examples.

Armen Ashotyan, Deputy Chairman of the Republican Party of Armenia (RPA), recently told journalists the following: “It seems to me that we are more likely to join the EU than Nikol Pashinyan will bring us peace with his agenda. If Nikol Pashinyan remains in power, peace is out of the question.”

Almost simultaneously, former Armenian President and RPA leader Serzh Sargsyan also spoke to the press with a categorical statement: “I do not see any peace, I simply do not see it.”

The thesis emerging from these two statements is obvious: the former president and his “loyal aide” want to convince Armenian society that only under their rule are peace and a European perspective possible, while the current government allegedly leads the country into a dead end.

What is striking is how easily Ashotyan talks about Armenia’s prospects of joining the European Union — as if his party had ever paved a broad road to Brussels, which Pashinyan is now supposedly deliberately destroying. But the facts tell a very different story. To see this, one only needs to rewind a bit in Armenian history.

First, Serzh Sargsyan’s presidency was characterised by extremely limited foreign-policy manoeuvrability and Armenia’s geopolitical dependence on Russia. The country’s economy was deeply integrated into Russian capital, and the political elites acted under Moscow’s directives. At that time, the Armenian president was more likely using European structures as leverage in political bargaining with Moscow rather than pursuing a genuine strategy. The clearest proof of this is September 2013: after a meeting with President Vladimir Putin, Serzh Sargsyan announced that Armenia would abandon signing the EU Association Agreement. Instead of moving toward Europe, the country unexpectedly pivoted 180 degrees — toward the Eurasian Economic Union. In other words, there was no independent foreign policy, no European prospects — only subordination to Russia’s will.

Second, during that period, Armenia did not meet even the slightest standards of legislation, economy, or defence policy that are fundamental for obtaining EU candidate status. Moreover, no serious reforms were carried out to bring the Armenian state apparatus closer to a European model of governance. Therefore, even a hint that Armenia’s chances of joining the EU were higher under Sargsyan than they are now completely ignores historical reality.

Now let us turn directly to Sargsyan’s statement about peace. Surely you would agree that even the word “peace,” coming from a man who has spent nearly his entire life ensuring that peace did not exist, sounds blasphemous.

It is widely known that Sargsyan not only participated in the war against Azerbaijan and served as acting “Defence Minister” of the separatist entity known as the “Nagorno Karabakh Republic” (“NKR”) from 1992 to 1993, but was also one of the organisers and participants in ethnic cleansing of the peaceful Azerbaijani population — the blood of Azerbaijani elders, women, and children is on his hands. This is confirmed by his own admission in an interview with British journalist Thomas de Waal: “Before Khojaly, the Azerbaijanis thought that they were joking with us, they thought that the Armenians were people who could not raise their hand against the civilian population. We needed to put a stop to all that. And that’s what happened.”

In other words, in Sargsyan’s understanding, the mass murder of innocent people is a political tool to achieve objectives. And today, this advocate of war speaks of “not seeing peace.” How cynical and immoral these words sound coming from someone whose political biography is a long list of crimes.

In February 2022, the Military Prosecutor’s Office of Azerbaijan announced that Kocharyan and Sargsyan were being held criminally liable and placed on the wanted list. They are accused of organising illegal gatherings from February 1988 onwards with the aim of inciting national hatred between the Azerbaijani and Armenian peoples — gatherings at which they called for the dismissal of Azerbaijanis from their jobs, their forcible expulsion from Karabakh, and the burning of their homes.

Kocharyan and Sargsyan, in violation of the Constitution of Azerbaijan, declared the creation of the so-called “NKR” and decided to suspend the application of Azerbaijani laws and the Constitution in the occupied territories. Their role as separatist leaders — who later became presidents of Armenia — in implementing the country’s occupation policies and committing acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing against the Azerbaijani people is equally evident.

However, no matter what Sargsyan and his ilk may say, they cannot erase reality. And the reality is that Armenia and Azerbaijan, following the signing on August 8 in Washington of the Joint Declaration between the leaders of the two countries under the mediation of U.S. President Donald Trump, have, for the first time in many decades, genuinely moved closer to peace.

The first point of this document formalised the text of the “Agreement on the Establishment of Peace and Interstate Relations between the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Republic of Armenia.” In doing so, official Yerevan, at the highest level and in writing, acknowledged the necessity of a shared peaceful future. This was followed by concrete steps from Azerbaijan, which were met with appreciation in the neighbouring republic.

Is all this really not enough to “see peace”? The question is largely rhetorical. It is clear that a long-term and lasting peace between Azerbaijan and Armenia threatens only those whose political capital has been built on the blood of innocent victims and hatred. Serzh Sargsyan, Armen Ashotyan, their party colleagues, the Dashnaks, the Catholicos, Robert Kocharyan — they do not merely reject peace. They fear it, because peace represents a political reckoning for those who have fed off war for years.