Armenian premier calls movement for Karabakh’s unification with Armenia ‘fatal mistake’

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan called the movement for the unification of Azerbaijan’s Karabakh region with Armenia “a fatal mistake.”

In a video circulated by Armenian media outlets on Sunday, Pashinyan argued that Karabakh was not Armenian.

“It must be stated that the Karabakh movement was a fatal mistake for us,” he said, adding: “What made it ours? Explain to me, what made it ours? We built schools there, kindergartens, factories, lived there, but fundamentally how was it ours? It wasn’t ours, it wasn’t ours.”

Karabakh, internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan but populated for decades mainly by ethnic Armenians, was at the center of a long-running conflict between the two South Caucasus nations following the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Azerbaijan regained full control over the region in 2023 after a military operation that led to the exodus of most of Karabakh’s Armenian population.