Armenia’s Political Elite Became Rich by Imports from Nagorno-Karabakh: Opinion

Due to lack of independence, it’s been a long time that Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh don’t have their own policy, said Karabakh Committee member Ashot Manucharyan at a press conference today.

“Our policy is purely a response to proposals by others, whose aims and interests have nothing to do with the aims and motives of the people of Armenia, Nagorno-Karabakh, and, to tell you the truth, Azerbaijan,” he said.

Speaking on the Heritage Party’s suggestion to recognize Nagorno-Karabakh’s independence, Manucharyan said that that won’t strengthen Armenia’s position in the international arena. 

“Karabakh was truly independent until 1998. From ’98, the loss of Karabakh’s independence began,” he said. In his words, from this perspective, playing a huge role was Armenia’s political elite, who “became rich also by imports from Karabakh.”

He explained that in 1998, a number of countries had visited and brought a huge package with different proposals for Nagorno-Karabakh’s leadership, because “everyone wanted to work with that Karabakh.”

“When I returned to Armenia, it turned out that that Karabakh, to which that’s addressed, is no longer,” he said, explaining that at that time, Nagorno-Karabakh’s president had become another country’s prime minister.