On April 1, former Minister of Foreign Affairs of RA Zohrab Mnatsakanyan published an article with the caption “Armenia’s “transit moment” is much more than 43 kilometers”. evnreport.com, in which the observations, particularly related to TRIPP, we we have referred. 

Of course, after the 44-day war, the former foreign minister wrote other articles on other topics published by including, in 2022, under the title “Aggressive implementation of the concept of “Disengagement for the sake of salvation is a necessity”, which Nikol Pashinyan also talked about during the war, but in the post-war period he made exactly the opposite claims.

We will detail the revolution or evolution of his views on the status of Artsakh in 2023. submitted when the Prague meeting had already taken place and Pashinyan recognized Artsakh as part of Azerbaijan.

And although we have referred to the former Minister of Foreign Affairs Zohrab Mnatsakanyan on another occasion, some of the incidents recorded during his tenure episodes in any case, taking into account the former head of the foreign ministry’s love of writing articles, as well as the fact that he served during the 44-day war of 2020, so he has his share of responsibility for the start of the war and its defeat, we consider it necessary to suggest to him what Zohrab Mnatsakanyan should write an article about today, what range of issues he should cover.

Let’s remind that in 2018 After the change of power, he was the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Armenia appointed Zohrab Mnatsakanyan, then in 2019 he was reassigned and continue to hold office until 2020 November 16.

In other words, he held office in the pre-war, war period and in 2020. during the signing of the tripartite statement on November 9-10, which was essentially a ceasefire document, but which contained includes:  item 9 on the unblocking of communications, referring to which, in fact, Azerbaijan and Armenia came and reached TRIPP, and about which Zohrab Mnatsakanyan recently wrote an article, it is a different matter that an attempt was made to push the Russian Federation out of this whole story.

But first of all, Zohrab Mnatsakanyan should answer the questions related to some episodes of negotiations in the pre-war period.

First, Nikol Pashinyan announced after the war. “Since 1994, that is, after the cease-fire, the negotiation process has been about returning Nagorno-Karabakh to Azerbaijan.” Aliyev, in turn, already during the war, at the beginning of October, as follows was the declassification did

“The ceasefire regime was maintained and restored for 2 years at the request of the RA Prime Minister. He asked me that the internal situation is difficult, I am under pressure from all sides, give me time and I will solve the issue. He said, “I have come with new ideas, I have erased everything that happened in the past, give me a chance and time.” I replied: OK. And what happened? After a year, he announced: “Karabakh is Armenia, and that’s it.” Well, let him say now: “Karabakh is Armenia, and that’s it.”

Now, what did Armenia negotiate before the 2020 war, were some preliminary agreements with Azerbaijan violated, what was the negotiation package in 2019, which the political opposition claims is still kept secret? Moreover, in 2019, the military and political leadership of RA made bold and “provocative” statements.

Did these affect the negotiations, if there was such a process, and what should be understood in the footnote of such statements of the RA leadership at that time, for example, what was the point of “Artsakh is Armenia, and that’s it” when Baku did not agree that Artsakh should return to the negotiation table? it was certainly not a mere display of romantic patriotism, as Pashinyan later tried to present.

Was the promise to return Artsakh to the negotiation table after the change of power a cold calculation, and what kind of cold calculation, had we reached the finish line in the negotiation process, and should Artsakh have made its final speech, or should Artsakh have been responsible for the outcome of the negotiations, and it doesn’t matter that the then president of Artsakh, Arayik Harutyunyan, was doing everything, as was Nikol Pashinyan. get it right when he decided to follow the path of secondary status of Artsakh, putting security first, which, although at first sight, did not contain danger. But we warned back then that it opens the door to the deployment of peacekeepers.

Second, Zohrab Mnatsakanyan should publicly state whether the July 2020 battles changed the negotiation situation.

It should be noted that last year the Chairman of the Standing Committee on Defense and Security of the National Assembly Andranik Kocharyan referred to the July battles and insist that they affected the negotiation process. Moreover, although Kocharyan pointed the “accusatory arrow” at the military, he also made an indirect reference to Zohrab Mnatsakanyan’s interrogation in the investigative commission.

“After the July events in Tavush, we found ourselves in a completely different reality. We asked Zohrab Mnatsakanyan as the Minister of Foreign Affairs: when did you feel that something changed, in the end, there were active negotiation processes? July cases somewhere need is more deep be studied – how? happened our participation that kind of nonsense to the process.” In September 2025 Factor.amAndranik Kocharyan said in an interview with

It should be noted that the former Minister of Foreign Affairs Zohrab Mnatsakanyan was invited to the NA investigative commission investigating the circumstances of the 44-day war at the beginning of April 2023, after Onik Gasparyan and Davit Tonoyan, before Nikol Pashinyan.

Andranik Kocharyan assured in the conversation with the journalists that they received the answers to the questions of interest to the committee from the former Minister of Foreign Affairs.

“Mr. Mnatsakanyan presented in detail, in the first stage, during his tenure, what was the negotiation process before that, since May 18, when he became the minister, what processes were developed, he presented all the realities in several stages, including processes that, as well as the negotiation process and the atmosphere of trust with the other side, should be built,” Kocharyan elaborated.

What concrete and substantive questions were asked and what Zohrab Mnatsakanyan, who served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs during the 44-day period, answered them, including the impact of the July battles, why not whether Turkey’s direct participation in the war was considered probable or not, is not known, because the authorities keep the entire report secret.

Instead, after the July battles, on July 31, 2020, he gave an interview “Shant” to the TV company, during which he particularly emphasized.

“Turkey’s positioning in the light of these developments expresses its destructive and destabilizing policies in this region, which we have seen and continue to see in the Eastern Mediterranean, North Africa, and the Middle East. And what is happening after July 12 is an attempt, a goal, to export that destabilizing policy to the South Caucasus, which we are resisting with all possible means.”

In other words, Zohrab Mnatsakanyan confirms here that at least after the July battles, it was clear that Turkey would take a direct part in a possible war. Nikol Pashinyan understood this very well, it is a different matter that he tried through his family newspaper one day before the 44-day war. to deny this obvious truth, noting that the opponents of the authorities are “preparing a propaganda ground to involve Turkey directly in a new war”.

And it is nothing that Nikol Pashinyan himself, on his Facebook page of November 29, 2020 in the post He made the opposite confession. “At any stage, including during the Turkish-Azerbaijani military exercises, I would go and say to the Turks: let’s resolve the issue without war, they would have said: give a specific schedule when I hand over the territories. If I signed, they would say, “Nikol traitor”, if I didn’t sign, the war would start.”

It should be noted that Davit Tonoyan, the former Minister of Defense of the Republic of Armenia, during his interrogation in the Investigative Commissionhad said that after the July battles, in the period preceding the war, in the context of the Turkish-Azerbaijani military exercises in Nakhichevan, “the redeployment of Turkish F16s to the city of Ganja (Gandzak) suggested that it was not all for the purpose of training.”

Moreover, Hulusi Akar was the Minister of Defense of Turkey at that timethreatened to punish Armenia, and it was even intended to implement the September 2020 war plan in Artsakh in the summer of the same year. As for the fact that Armenia’s opponent is no longer only Azerbaijan, but Turkey, the former head of the General Staff of the Armenian Armed Forces Onik Gasparyan warned before the July battles.

Now, when Zohrab Mnatsakanyan says in the aforementioned interview after the July battles that they tried to resist the Turkish threat by all possible means, what does that mean, what countries did they use to try to counter it, and why did that “resistance” fail?

For example, immediately after the July battles, the military leadership with the ambassadors of NATO member states meetings had in order to neutralize the applicability of F16. What steps has the structure headed by Zohrab Mnatsakanyan and himself taken in this regard?

It is only known that after the July battles, Armenia had suspended The participation of Turkish representatives in the planned inspection visits in the territory of the Republic of Armenia within the framework of the SDF treaty and the Vienna document.

Thirdly, the former head of the 2023 General Staff of the RA Armed Forces, Onik Gasparyan, announced that that before the war, Pashinyan was suggested to take political and diplomatic measures to “prevent the war or, at least, to create favorable conditions for the use of the RA Armed Forces, in particular, to instruct the RA Ministry of Foreign Affairs to develop a program of measures aimed at dramatically improving relations with the member states of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (especially with Russia), and providing friendly relations with the other states of the region (Iran and Georgia).” Did Zohrab Mnatsakanyan receive such an assignment, and what was done, because we have specific problems during the war? had, which Onik Gasparyan also referred to in the same statement.

«Due to weak diplomatic work and being under siege, uninterrupted and regular provision of the necessary amount of rockets and ammunition to the armed forces was not organized effectively, as a result of which it did not give a full opportunity to compensate the expenditure of rockets and ammunition, as well as the losses of weapons and military equipment.“, said Onik Gasparyan, who held the position of head of the General Staff during the war.

Can Zohrab Mnatsakanyan answer these clear and targeted accusations?

Or, during the war, he offered Nikol Pashinyan to stop the war, did he agree with the former head of the General Staff? of assessment with the fact that the later the war is stopped, we will have less favorable conditions for the negotiation process, and in general, how did the foreign ministry cooperate with the military leadership during the war?

Or what role did he play in the development of the tripartite statement of November 9-10, 2020? The list of questions to be answered by the former Minister of Foreign Affairs can be considered long, but let’s limit ourselves to this. One thing is clear: Zohrab Mnatsakanyan has a serious responsibility in his position for not preventing the war and then ending it, regardless of whether he accepts it or not…

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