Former National Security chief Armen Grigoryan (right) meets with Hikmet Hajiyev in Dilijan in June

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan announced on Thursday that he is replacing Armenia’s long time National Security chief Armen Grigoryan and is appointing the controversial former Parliament speaker Alen Simonyan, who in the past has insulted Artsakh Armenians and has criticized Armenia’s allies.

“It’s not that I’m dissatisfied with Armen Grigoryan’s work,” Pashinyan told journalists after the cabinet meeting, where he announced Simonyan’s appointment. “But it’s not that I’m so satisfied with my own work that I consider it perfect. I think such decisions are normal in politics.”

Pashinyan also announced that he had offered Grigoryan another position on his staff. He did not specify the position but said that Grigoryan had turned it down.

During the past eight years of his tenure, and especially after 2021, Grigoryan was actively involved in the processes of Armenian-Azerbaijani relations and the peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

Not long ago, in 2022, Grigoryan tried to advance issues related to the security and rights of Armenians living in Artsakh during talks with with his Azerbaijani counterpart, Hikmet Hajiyev, a chief advisor to President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan.

“There was an agreement between me and the assistant to the Azerbaijani president to create an international mechanism for Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan to discuss the rights and security of the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh,” Grigoryan had stated.

However, Baku never agreed to any international mechanism, and a year later, in 2023, Azerbaijan launched a violent attack on Artsakh that forcibly displaced the Armenian population there, which fled to Armenia.

Grigoryan’s last meeting with Hajiyev was in Dilijan, a week after the June 7 parliamentary elections. Many wondered why Hajiyev had rushed to Armenia after the elections.

As Pashinyan explained in parliament, the purpose of the Grigoryan-Hajiyev meeting was to “manage the threat of war” created after the elections. Judging by Pashinyan’s statement, the Azerbaijani side was concerned about the nearly half a million votes received by the opposition forces.

A longtime Pashinyan ally, Simonyan served as parliament speaker from 2021-2026. He expected to retain his post after the parliamentary elections held on June 7 and won by Civil Contract. However, the party’s governing body instead designated Ruben Rubinyan, who was elected in August.

Simonyan was often seen as a loose cannon, publicly criticizing Armenia’s allies, among them Russia, and insulting Artsakh Armenians.

In an eyebrow-raising incident last year, Simonyan came to Baku’s defense, seemingly empathizing with what he called Azerbaijan’s “big wounds,” and rationalizing demands by Aliyev who was pushing for no Armenian border checks along the road going through Syunik to Nakhichevan—the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity.

In another disparaging remark in 2024, Simonyan faced strong opposition criticism after implying that Azerbaijan had a legitimate right to recapture Artsakh by force.

“When the second Karabakh war started [in 2020] we were very upset because the world did not respond to that war the way we wanted,” Simonyan said at the time. “The reason [for that response] was also the lack of legitimacy, the lack of legitimacy on our side.”

“Attacking Karabakh and occupying territories from Armenia are different things from the legal standpoint,” Simonyan said. “Azerbaijan carried out an operation in Karabakh behind which it had at least three or four UN [Security Council] resolutions.”

“The fact is that that territory in question was and is an internationally part of Azerbaijan,” added Simonyan.

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