Artsakh’s State Minister Nzhdeh Iskandaryan stated during a press conference that, according to recent data, over 20,000 displaced Artsakh Armenians have already left Armenia.
“The government is doing everything to ensure there are no Artsakh Armenians left in Armenia. These are veiled policies that will not help them stay,” he said, as reported by Panorama.am.
He also responded to National Assembly Speaker Alen Simonyan’s earlier remark that “the people of Artsakh should have stayed and fought.”
“Is that person explaining how we should have fought? Maybe from their cozy offices they had all the strategies figured out. Let them say how exactly we were supposed to fight,” Iskandaryan replied.
He emphasized that Artsakh Armenians live with daily hope of returning to their homeland.
“For the issue of Artsakh to stay on the agenda, the people of Artsakh must be kept in Armenia. If we can maintain a population of 100,000 to 120,000 here, the issue of return will inevitably re-emerge on international platforms. These current authorities are not permanent; state-oriented forces will come, and collective return will become part of the agenda,” he added.
On September 19, 2023, Azerbaijan launched a large-scale attack on Artsakh, subjecting the region to intense shelling. A day later, Artsakh’s leadership agreed to a ceasefire brokered by Russian peacekeepers, accepting Baku’s terms of disarmament and dissolution of the Artsakh Republic. Mass forced displacement followed on September 24, with over 100,000 people fleeing to Armenia. Only about 20 ethnic Armenians are reportedly left in Artsakh. On September 28, Artsakh President Samvel Shahramanyan signed a decree on the republic’s dissolution, effective January 1, 2024. Later, on October 19, Shahramanyan issued another decree nullifying the earlier dissolution announcement.
