Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has pledged to oppose the continued existence in Armenia of institutions linked to the former unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, arguing that the country cannot have parallel state structures operating within its territory. He maintained that such institutions must come under the administration of the Armenian state and framed their continued existence as creating a “state within a state.” 

Addressing the status of Kyarki, also known as Tigranashen, Pashinyan stated that the settlement was not part of the 29,743-square-kilometer territory that constituted Armenia during the Soviet period. According to the Armenian Prime Minister, adopting a different position would imply a different figure for Armenia’s territorial size. 

Pashinyan separately commented on the dispute over Gandzasar following a visit to Karabakh by foreign diplomats, during which Azerbaijani presidential aide Hikmet Hajiyev presented Armenian cultural heritage as Caucasian Albanian. Pashinyan described Hajiyev’s statements on the monastery as unacceptable and incomprehensible, while rejecting the idea of making it Armenia’s objective to prove its position to Azerbaijan. 

Pashinyan noted that such an effort would be pointless and argued that the established peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan is valuable to both sides and should be treated with care. Security Council Secretary Alen Simonyan likewise indicated that he had raised the issue with Hajiyev but stressed the need to prevent competing interpretations from interfering with the peace process.

Pashinyan further maintained that the Armenia-Azerbaijan peace talks successfully concluded after both sides moved away from what he called mechanical reciprocity, which had created a cycle of reciprocal actions without further progress. He presented this approach as part of a broader shift toward a different logic in the bilateral relationship.

The prime minister also called the “Western Azerbaijan” discourse in Azerbaijan a serious security concern for Armenia and regional peace. Pashinyan warned that parallel public and non-public narratives in both countries could create additional risks by allowing domestic rhetoric to affect the peace process.