Artsakh President Samvel Shahramanyan on Wednesday demanded an apology from Armenia’s Parliament Speaker Alen Simonyan, who said that Artsakh Armenians should have stayed and fought instead of leaving when Azerbaijan launched a massive attack against Artsakh in September, 2023.
Simonyan’s remarks have drawn strong condemnation from Artsakh Armenians, as well as Armenian opposition figures, some of whom called the speaker’s statement “hate speech.”
Simonyan made the claims, echoing statements made last year by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, when he was asked by an Artsakh Armenian reporter on Tuesday what Pashinyan’s government is doing to assert and advance the rights of Artsakh Armenian’s right to return to their homeland.
“You should have fought. You should have fought. You should have fought,” Simonyan asserted to the reporter.
“You left because it wasn’t safe, even though you could have stayed and fought,” Simonyan added. “But you got out.”
At least 198 soldiers and 25 civilians in Artsakh were killed during the 24-hour attack launched by Azerbaijan on September 19, 2023 that forced the displacement of more than 100,000 residents who fled to Armenia. Dozens of Artsakh Armenians still remain unaccounted for since the displacement.
Sharamanyan, the Artsakh president, issued a statement on Wednesday condemning Simonyan and calling for an apology for lambasting Artsakh Armenians, who were ethnically cleansed from their homeland.
“Samvel Shahramanian considers it necessary to emphasize once again that the people of Artsakh did everything in their power to continue living in their historical homeland,” the statement from Shahramanyan’s office said.
“However, the fight is not only waged on the battlefield but also on the political and diplomatic fronts where Alen Simonyan has also been at the forefront, and has changed his position as it has suited him,” the statement added.
“The Artsakh authorities spared no effort to ensure that the servicemen who defended the homeland do not feel alone and are able to safely exit their occupied or encircled positions after the cessation of hostilities,” added the statement.
Shahramanyan demanded that the Armenian parliament speaker “refrain from any assessment that undermines the struggle of the people of Artsakh and the defense of the homeland, and at the same time comment on the statement about who was calling whom from Artsakh and asking to open the so-called border.”
The Artsakh president said that instead of making divisive and dangerous statements, Simonyan could use the parliament platform to “address the existential challenges facing Artsakh Armenians, to direct efforts to reviewing the failed housing program proposed for the Artsakh compatriots and to create suitable conditions for Artsakh Armenians to remain in Mother Armenia.”
The Armenian Revolutionary Federation Artsakh Central Committee also issued a statement condemning the brash statements from Simonyan.
The Artsakh ARF said that such actions by “undignified” Armenian government officials will leave “a black stain and disgraceful memories on our state’s history and will serve as an example for and evidence to generations of denial of the homeland.”
“This is yet another proof that the current authorities of the Republic of Armenia not only do not represent the ideals of the Armenian people, but are also serving the forces hostile to Armenia by propagating their ideology,” the Artsakh ARF said.
Artsakh’s Human Rights Defender, Gegham Stepanyan, said that demeaning Artsakh Armenians has become a mode of operation for Pashinyan’s government, which, he said, is attempting to deflect blame for the fall of Artsakh.
Stepanyan called Simonyan’s statement “hate speech.”
“In response to the National Assembly speaker, one can cite numerous facts of struggle and self-sacrifice, but all of that is meaningless when we are dealing with immorality, meanness, and cynicism on a cosmic level,” Stepanyan said in a Facebook post on Tuesday, reacting to Simonyan’s remarks.
Last June, Pashinyan claimed that the Artsakh forces did not fight back when Azerbaijan launched the massive offensive, making absurd allegations that Artsakh leaders and the opposition in Armenia wanted to Artsakh Armenians to flee in order to topple his regime.
“Within hours we realized that we are alone, that resisting the Azerbaijani armed forces outnumbering us by a factor of 12 to 1 was not possible and we had to save lives,” Shahramanyan said at the time.
Several international human rights and legal experts, among them the former prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, have called Azerbaijan’s actions “ethnic cleansing.”
Joining that chorus was the U.S.-based watchdog, Freedom House, which released a report alongside six other human rights groups, concluding that forced displacement of Artsakh’s Armenians was a result of Azerbaijan’s systematic “policy of ethnic cleansing.”
