Former director of the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute, Hayk Demoyan, has harshly criticized the institution’s current leadership, accusing them of silent complicity following recent statements by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. In a Facebook post, Demoyan argued that Pashinyan’s comments render the institute’s mission meaningless.
Demoyan’s public message is addressed to the Genocide Institute’s leadership, scientific council, and board of trustees.
“After Nikol Pashinyan’s statements yesterday, your activity and mission have become pointless and redundant. Moreover, his justification of the consequences of genocide has morally delegitimized you and your work,” Demoyan wrote.
He argued that the institute has only one chance to restore its credibility: to issue a clear academic, legal, and moral response to what he called “inhumane and anti-state formulations” in Pashinyan’s address. According to Demoyan, the prime minister openly justified displacement and statelessness, contradicting the UN’s 1948 Genocide Convention.
“You remained silent and gave no evaluation of the ethnic cleansing and genocide carried out against the Armenians of Artsakh, in which the Armenian government, through Nikol Pashinyan, played an active role,” Demoyan wrote.
He also accused the institute of ignoring statements from Pashinyan and members of his ruling party that allegedly questioned or undermined the historical fact of the Armenian Genocide. “With this silence, you have involuntarily become accomplices to Pashinyan’s declarations and criminal conduct,” he claimed.
Demoyan reminded that Pashinyan had previously referred to the 2020 war and 2023 events as genocide, but now, through his latest comments, “openly services that same genocide and cements its outcomes as part of a criminal agreement with the perpetrators.”
Demoyan demanded a public response from the following individuals:
- Edita Gzoyan, Director of the Genocide Museum-Institute
- Harutyun Gevorgyan, Chair of the Board of Trustees
- Harutyun Marutyan, Former Director
- Suren Manukyan, Former Deputy Director
- Yeghishe Kirakosyan, Board of Trustees Member
- Hranush Kharatyan, Board of Trustees Member
In his earlier address, Pashinyan stated that peace is impossible without resolving the Karabakh issue and called the return of displaced persons from Nagorno-Karabakh unrealistic, warning that raising this issue could threaten peace with Azerbaijan.
