On the eve of the end of the tenure of Vagharshak Harutyunyan, the Armenian Ambassador to Russia and the former Minister of Defense of the Republic of Armenia, a serious Russian-Armenian scandal broke out conected with the signing of a dubious document on the deployment of Russian troops in Syunik in December 2020 and the handing over of the 21-kilometer section of the Goris-Kapan road.
The fact that such a document was signed by the Defense Ministers of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia, bypassing the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Armenia, was stated by the then Minister of Foreign Affairs of Armenia Ara Ayvazyan in an interview with the Radio Liberty station. A few days later, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed the existence of such a document.
Why did Ara Ayvazyan remember about the document just now, even though Hrant Bagratyan published it in February 2021, the existence of which the government denied? Why does Ara Ayvazyan emphasize that the memorandum was signed by the Minister of Defense, without mentioning whether the Prime Minister was aware or whether the document was signed without him?
Let’s remind that on November 20, 2020, 10 days after the signing of the tripartite statement [the one signed after the 44-Day War], Defense Minister Davit Tonoyan resigned, and Vagharshak Harutyunyan, who called himself a Russian general, was appointed in his place. After some time, Harutyunyan signed a memorandum by which a part of the Armenian territory was transferred to the enemy (allegedly along the Soviet borders) and Russian troops were stationed in Syunik.
During that time, Prime Minister Pashinyan, from the highest podiums, called the Syunik villages with non-Armenian names such as Eyvazli, Chaizami, etc., trying to imply with every word that these territories are not only non-Armenian, but also were occupied by the “bad” former authorities.
As a result, the Goris-Kapan interstate road was closed and the faulty practice of handing over Armenian lands began. Sev Lich [Black Lake], Jermuk, Tegh, then the whole of Artsakh, which became Nagorno Karabakh, recently the villages of Tavush, which also started being named with non-Armenian names at the level of the Prime Minister. Almost all the concessions in Pashinyan’s government were explained by the intention to avoid “corridor logic”.
No document in the form of a decision of the National Assembly or the Constitutional Court legalizing the handover of those lands was ever published. Everything is done “in the air”, without responsible and guilty persons.
But most importantly, Russian troops have appeared in all surrendered territories, without any legal basis. Russia declared that Armenia has no borders, which allowed Baku to forcibly occupy a part of Armenia’s territory. Four years later, after the Tavush villages were handed over, there are talks of the danger on closing the Armenia-Georgia highway and the gas pipeline. Those territories were also surrendered under the pretext of “avoiding war”.
Guaranteeing the unpunished occupations by Baku are the Russian troops, which, according to the memorandum of December 2020, contrary to the Armenian-Russian interstate agreement, were deployed in Syunik, then along the Sotk-Khoznavar line. In September 2022, the breakthrough in Jermuk took place in the area where the Russians were stationed: they had left the position beforehand and departed. It was the same story in those places.
Let’s remind that, according to the Russian-Armenian agreement, Russian army troops have the right to be deployed only in the territory of the 102nd Russian base in Gyumri and Erebuni airport, and Russian border guards — on the border with Iran and Turkey. But for three years they have been in the entire territory of Armenia.
What has changed, why did they remember 2020 memorandum and even found the guilty in the person of Vagharshak Harutyunyan?
It was announced recently that Russian troops began to withdraw from Syunik. The ambassador of Armenia to Russia was also changed; Gurgen Arsenyan was appointed to that position. On the same day, the former Minister of Defense Davit Tonoyan, who was in pre-trial detention for 3 years, was released on bail.
In 2020, the world media tried to find out how Armenia is giving up its territories without any legal basis and why it is actually handing over its territories to Russia. The BBC even published a lengthy article about the Karabakh conflict: “Armenians protest against the return to the Soviet border”.
It is not clear whether the persons whose signatures were placed on the altar and the sovereign territory of Armenia was dismantled piece by piece will be held accountable or not. And whether that malicious process has stopped or not.
Naira Hayrumyan