Armenian opposition MPs sue government for not sharing peace treaty draft

Four Armenian opposition MPs have filed a lawsuit against the government, accusing them of gatekeeping the draft of the peace treaty with Azerbaijan. 

On Monday, Christine Vardanyan, an MP from the opposition Armenia Alliance faction, announced that she and three other members of the faction — Anna Grigoryan, Geghan Manukyan, and Artur Khachatryan — had filed the lawsuit.

They demanded that a letter written by Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan in March 2024 prohibiting the opposition from reviewing the draft be declared ‘unlawful’, as per a directive issued by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in February.

Vardanyan wrote that the preliminary court hearing had been scheduled for 14 January.

‘We will remain determined to annul this arbitrary decision and restore our right to access this crucial document, which is of great importance to the public,’ said Vardanyan.

Earlier this year, the same four MPs were allowed to look at the draft treaty. They said that Azerbaijan’s ‘proposals and approaches in no way express the position of a country that wishes to establish a real, just, and lasting peace’.

At the time, they said that their concerns over the Azerbaijani proposals were not being dispelled by the government, and were rather ‘deepening’ instead. 

Over two months later, the MPs announced that their application to review the next package of proposals was rejected following Pashinyan’s directive.

The Foreign Ministry responded to their application, telling the opposition MPs that they refuse to share the draft agreement ‘in order not to disrupt the negotiation process’.

‘In order not to disrupt the negotiation process, to exclude indirect negative impacts on the process, as well as arbitrary, incorrect public interpretations of the document, we do not consider it appropriate to provide the requested information at this time,’ read the Foreign Ministry’s response.

In October, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan stated at parliament that it was his ‘personal decision’ to give an opportunity to the opposition MPs to get acquainted with the draft. 

‘You got acquainted with those documents, then you made posts on social networks that have absolutely nothing to do with reality, have exploited it for your political purposes and I forbade it’, said Pashinyan, adding that he believed that he made the right decision.

‘Because let’s say you go, read the text, then come and tell fairy tales. Will we sit in silence? Where is the logic in that?’