The list of daunting political challenges confronting Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan seems to keep growing. Not only is he trying to finesse a peace deal with Azerbaijan while altering Armenia’s geopolitical course away from Russia toward the West, he is facing a mounting challenge to his authority from displaced leaders of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Pashinyan’s efforts to secure a border delimitation deal with Azerbaijan as a prelude to a lasting peace settlement have generated stiff domestic opposition, in part because they involve a unilateral handover of territory to Baku. Perhaps the constituency most angered by Pashinyan’s policies are the tens of thousands of Karabakh Armenians who were evicted from their homeland in 2023 by advancing Azerbaijani troops. 

The prime minister is intent on keeping Nagorno-Karabakh’s de facto former leaders on the sidelines as negotiations with Azerbaijan play out. At a late March cabinet session, Pashinyan bluntly announced that Karabakhi leaders would not be permitted to establish a government in exile. A government statement said that “in Armenia, apart from the Government of the Republic of Armenia, no other government can exist.”

During the cabinet meeting, Pashinyan hinted that a formal political-type organization representing refugee interests could well turn into an instrument of manipulation used by Moscow. “Appropriate measures should be taken so that external forces do not use certain circles to create a threat to Armenia’s security,” the statement quotes Pashinyan as saying.

Pashinyan has grounds for concern. The cabinet session occurred a few days after the former president of Nagorno-Karabakh’s de facto government, Samvel Shahramanyan, attended a Russia-sponsored event in Yerevan that featured a movie screening about Russia’s war in Ukraine, as well as a Moscow-slanted photo exhibition on the 2014 EuroMaidan protests in Ukraine. Russian ambassador to Armenia, Sergei Koprikin, called those who participated in the event “friends of Russia.”

Shahramanyan has not been actively involved in Armenian politics since September 2023, after signing a capitulation agreement that acknowledged the de facto Nagorno-KarabakhRepublic would cease to exist as of January 1, 2024. Yet, in an interview with the French newspaper Le Figaro, Shahramanyan spoke about the involvement of Karabakh’s state bodies in the development of Artsakh’s representative office in Yerevan. (Artsakh is the Armenian term for the territory). He described the Nagorno-Karabakh’s dissolution as “illegal,” but acknowledged that agreeing to it was the best way to save Karabakh Armenian lives.

Shahramanyan mentioned that members of the de facto Karabakh government continue to fulfill their duties in Armenia voluntarily. The Armenian government, which provided most of the budget for the Nagorno-Karabakh territory, eliminated funding following the Azerbaijani takeover of the region. 

Pashinyan’s opposition to a government in exile has drawn criticism from refugee advocates. Former Artsakh ombudsman Artak Beglaryan, for example, called the prime minister’s stance unacceptable. 

Lots of Karabakh refugees have their own grievances about Pashinyan’s policies. Hundreds staged a protest on March 20, complaining that government resettlement assistance is insufficient: they want officials to provide better housing benefits for refugees. Assistance levels reflect a government preference that Karabakh Armenians resettle in villages that have seen a net outflow of residents in recent decades. Most refugees want to live in cities, including Yerevan, where living costs are higher.

Bad blood between Pashinyan and Karabakh Armenian leaders has a long history that predates Azerbaijan’s victory in the second Karabakh war. 

A faction dubbed the Karabakh clan, led by two former presidents who were natives of the region, Robert Kocharyan and Serzh Sargsyan, controlled Armenian politics for roughly two decades, ending in 2018, when a popular uprising led by Pashinyan toppled Sargsyan. 

Kocharyan ushered in the era of Karabakh clan dominance in 1998 after engineering the ouster of Armenia’s first president, Levon Ter-Petrosyan, over efforts to reach a peace agreement with Azerbaijan. Ter-Petrosyan assailed the Karabakh clan as corrupt during an unsuccessful campaign to regain the presidency in 2008. At that time, Pashinyan was a strong Ter-Petrosyan supporter. However, the two aren’t closely allied at present.

Given his past experience, Pashinyan seems unlikely to budge on giving the former Karabakh Armenian leadership any voice in policy matters. “Let’s say everyone goes, rents an apartment and puts up a sign, saying: We are the government of this or that,” Pashinyan stated at the cabinet session. “Such actions against the state … cannot remain unresponded to by the Republic of Armenia.”