The Armenian government did not organize any ceremonies on the occasion. Nor did Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian or other government officials make public statements on it.
Instead, Pashinian posted on his Facebook page an Armenian pop song from the 1980s to show followers his “nice start to the workday.” Later in the day, he attended an awards ceremony held at the presidential palace in Yerevan ahead of Armenia’s independence holiday.
Azerbaijan launched the offensive in Karabakh on September 19, 2023 nearly three years after a ceasefire deal brokered by Russian halted a six-week Armenian-Azerbaijani war. Its troops greatly outnumbered and outgunned Karabakh’s small army that received no military support from Armenia. Also, Russian peacekeepers deployed in Karabakh did not try to prevent or stop the assault.
Vehicles carrying refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh queue on the road leading towards the Armenian border, September 25, 2023.
After 24-hour hostilities, Karabakh’s leadership agreed to disband the Defense Army in return for Baku stopping the assault and allowing Karabakh’s more than 100,000 remaining residents to flee the enclave. Virtually all of them took refuge in Armenia over the next two weeks.
At least 198 soldiers as well as 25 civilian residents of Karabakh were killed in the brief but fierce fighting. The Azerbaijani Defense Ministry acknowledged around 200 combat deaths among its military personnel involved in the operation.
Speaking to journalists at the Yerablur military pantheon, Armenian opposition leaders again blamed Pashinian for the fall of Karabakh. They insisted that he precipitated the Azerbaijani attack by recognizing Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan in 2022.
“In [the run-up to parliamentary elections in] 2021, they promised the people to protect the rights of the Artsakh Armenians and even seek de-occupation of Armenian lands,” said Ishkhan Saghatelian of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun). “They got elected with a different platform. They got no mandate to recognize Artsakh as part of Azerbaijan or hand over any territory of Armenia to Azerbaijan.”
ARMENIA - A refugee boy from Nagorno-Karabakh waits upon his arrival at a temporary accommodation center in Goris, September 25, 2023.
“We are not resigned to the current situation,” he said. “The Artsakh chapter cannot be closed, and the ruling clique doesn’t represent the views of our people.”
Pashinian has claimed the opposite for the past two years. Ten days after meeting with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev in Washington on August 8, he declared that the Karabakh Armenians should stop hoping to return to their homeland. They should instead “settle down in Armenia,” he said.
In a joint report released last November, U.S.-based watchdog Freedom House and six other human rights groups concluded that the exodus of the Karabakh Armenians was the result of Azerbaijan’s systematic “policy of ethnic cleansing.” They said that even before the 2023 offensive Baku sought to drive them out of their homeland by “creating conditions of severe insecurity, hardship, and psychological duress.”
Azerbaijan has denied forcing Karabakh’s population to flee the region and said they can live there under Azerbaijani rule. Karabakh’s leaders and ordinary residents rejected such an option even before the Azerbaijani offensive condemned by the United States and the European Union. Despite the condemnations, the Western powers did not impose sanctions on Baku.