Azatutyun.am – Former Foreign Minister Ara Ayvazian has shed more light on his resignation last year and signaled support for the Armenian opposition’s stated efforts to oust Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.
Ayvazian stepped down on May 27, 2021 following an emergency meeting of Armenia’s Security Council which discussed mounting tensions on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border. The meeting came days after Azerbaijani troops reportedly advanced into Armenian territory at several sections of the border.
Speaking at a farewell meeting with the Armenian Foreign Ministry officials on May 31, Ayvazian hinted that he decided to quit because of disagreeing with government decisions which he believes put the country’s sovereignty and national security at risk. He did not go into details. His four deputies also tendered their resignations.
Ayvazian said late on Tuesday that he objected to Pashinyan’s calls for a mutual withdrawal of Armenian and Azerbaijani forces from contested border areas and the deployment of international observers there.
“I believe that the mutual withdrawal [proposal] was a serious tactical mistake on our part,” he told journalists.
Ayvazian argued that the United States, France and other foreign powers stopped telling Baku to pull back its forces from Armenia’s Syunik and Gegharkunik provinces after Pashinyan voiced his proposal. He said the proposal meant that Yerevan regards the border areas seized by Azerbaijani forces as disputed territory.
Ayvazian, who was appointed as foreign minister in November 2020, spoke with reporters as he visited Yerevan’s Liberty Square to talk to Artur Vanetsian, an opposition leader who began a nonstop sit-there on Sunday.
Vanetsian’s Fatherland party and other major opposition groups have pledged to stage coordinated street protests in a bid to topple Pashinyan over they see as unacceptable concessions to Azerbaijan planned by him.
Pashinyan said last week that the international community is pressing Armenia to “lower a bit the bar on the question of Nagorno-Karabakh’s status” and recognize Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity. He signaled Yerevan’s intention to make such concessions to Baku, fuelling more opposition allegations that he has agreed to Azerbaijani control over Karabakh.
Asked whether he supports the opposition push for regime change, Ayvazian said: “I resigned because I thought that the policy pursued [by Pashinyan’s government] does not help to further our national interests.”
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