Opposition Not Allowed to Familiarize Itself with Draft Agreement with Azerbaijan: Response from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs

The opposition is prohibited from familiarizing itself with the draft agreement with Azerbaijan. This was reported by Gegham Manukyan, a member of the 'Armenia' parliamentary faction, on his Facebook page. 'On February 7, Nikol Pashinyan announced that he would no longer allow opposition MPs to familiarize themselves with the points of the agreement being discussed with Azerbaijan. On February 23, we approached the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to familiarize ourselves with the latest package of proposals. Today, we received an official letter from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, stating: 'Given the consideration of not disrupting the negotiation process, preventing indirect negative impacts on the process, as well as excluding arbitrary and incorrect public interpretations of the document, we do not consider it appropriate to provide the requested information at this time.'

We must stress that the letter lacks any reference to a violation of any provision of the current legislation on our part. It is also important to note that our public comments made after familiarizing ourselves with each successive version have caught the attention of Azerbaijani high-ranking circles, where criticism from the ruling party toward allowing opposition MPs to familiarize themselves with the points of the agreement has been voiced. Therefore, this letter from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirms our previously expressed serious doubts regarding the ban on opposition MPs accessing the negotiation process, which is yet another demand from Azerbaijan that is being complied with by Nikol Pashinyan.

We are dealing with yet another arbitrary step aimed at deliberately obstructing parliamentary activity, the purpose of which is to disrupt our public awareness efforts on issues vital to the Armenian people and to mislead the public through the provision of one-sided information,' the MP stated.