Campaigning for the elections late last week, Pashinian pointed to “three Azerbaijani territories” controlled by Armenia when he was asked by a voter about further territorial concessions favored by him.

Pashinian appeared to refer to three enclaves inside Armenia which were controlled by Azerbaijan in Soviet times and occupied by the Armenian army in the early 1990s. The Azerbaijani side seized at the time a bigger Armenian enclave, Artsvashen, as well as large swathes of agricultural land belonging to border communities in Armenia’s northern Tavush province. It occupied more Armenian territory during border clashes in 2021 and 2022.

“As a result of the delimitation [of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border] we need to find solutions, [decide] what to do because if Artsvashen is fully given back … The conflict is fully overcome. We should now sort out its last consequences through the delimitation.”

The main opposition groups challenging Pashinian’s Civil Contract party in the June 7 elections seized upon that statement, saying that Armenia will again give up more territory and gain nothing in return if Pashinian is reelected. They insisted that this would further weaken the country.

Ishkhan Saghatelian, a leading member of former President Robert Kocharian’s Hayastan alliance, claimed at the weekend that Pashinian has already given such a promise to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. Saghatelian warned Armenians that he will claim a popular mandate to make such a concession if he wins reelection.

“This man is under their [Azerbaijani leaders’] domination,” said Narek Karapetian of the Strong Armenia alliance. “He is a prisoner of his own promises to those people [in Azerbaijan.]”

Gagik Tsarukian, the leader of the Prosperous Armenia Party, likewise expressed concern over Pashinian’s statement during a campaign trip to Armenia’s Syunik province on Monday. “That’s not peace,” he said.

Pashinian’s government controversially ceded four other border areas to Azerbaijan in 2024, sparking massive anti-government demonstrations in Yerevan. Protest leaders backed by the Armenian opposition said that the unilateral land transfer will encourage Baku to demand further Armenian concessions.

An Armenian-Azerbaijani peace treaty initialed last August commits the two South Caucasus nations to recognizing each other’s territorial integrity. It says that they will be “guided” by the 1991 Alma-Ata Declaration in which newly independent ex-Soviet republics recognized each other’s Soviet-era borders. Pashinian has portrayed this reference as a key guarantee of peace.

The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry downplayed the legal significance of that declaration in 2024, saying that it “has nothing to do with the question of where the borders of CIS member states lie and which territories belong to which country.” Yerevan deplored that statement at the time, saying it “may mean that Azerbaijan has territorial claims to Armenia.”

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