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Elnur Enveroglu

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When former Armenian president Robert Kocharyan stood before supporters on 6 December to declare that Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan might be an “agent”, “ignorant”, or “acting deliberately” against the state, it was not simply another political outburst. It was the latest chapter in a long and damaging campaign by Armenia’s old guard to sabotage the fragile foundations of peace in the South Caucasus. And more significantly, it revealed the core truth of Armenian politics today: the real force undermining national stability is not the Armenian Church, as some insist, but the remnants of the so-called Karabakh Clan, the very political group to which Kocharyan belongs.

For years, Kocharyan has cultivated an atmosphere of suspicion, revanchism, and historical denialism. His statements now follow the same familiar script, portray the sitting government as traitorous, declare external enemies omnipresent, and insist that peace is somehow an existential threat to the Armenian state. Yet this narrative collapses the moment one examines the record. If anyone has been destroying the possibility of normalisation and regional stability, it is Kocharyan himself and the political formation he represents.

To understand Kocharyan’s rhetoric, one must recall the decades in which he and his allies controlled Armenia’s political system. During those years, instead of acknowledging reality, they built an entire national ideology around falsehoods regarding the occupation of Azerbaijani territories. Rather than encouraging compromise, they entrenched a maximalist position that left Armenia diplomatically isolated and strategically cornered. This was no accident; it was policy...

The myth of an “independent Artsakh” or the illusion that Armenia could indefinitely control territories recognised internationally as Azerbaijani became the cornerstone of Kocharyan-era politics. Armenian society was fed the story that the occupation was somehow sustainable and that time was on Armenia’s side. But as the saying goes, lies have short legs. They can run only so far before the truth catches up.

Garabagh was never recognised as Armenian, and it was under Kocharyan and Serzh Sargsyan that Armenia squandered the last realistic chances for a negotiated settlement. Instead of preparing the Armenian population for peace, they prepared it for perpetual conflict, knowing full well that Armenia lacked the economic, demographic, and military capacity to sustain such a course.

Now, the former clique is hiding behind the Church...

Kocharyan now appears to sense the diminishing relevance of his political movement. Lacking public support, unable to mobilise a majority, and discredited by history, he turns to the only institution that still carries emotional weight for segments of Armenian society: the Church. It is a strategic hiding place, a shield behind which the Karabakh Clan attempts to protect itself from political irrelevance.

However, it is important to distinguish between the Church as a religious institution and the political actors who manipulate it. The Armenian Apostolic Church has long had a symbolic connection to national identity, but portraying it as the main political opposition to Pashinyan is a deliberate misrepresentation. The real opposition, the one actively attempting to rekindle communal hatred and destabilise regional peace, is Kocharyan’s circle.

They invoke religion not out of genuine faith, but because they know the Church can be used to stir sentiment among an otherwise disillusioned public. When the former political elite can no longer inspire confidence through policy, they rely on mythology, nostalgia, and sacred symbolism.

Pashinyan’s Admission of Truth

Kocharyan’s frustration also stems from the fact that Pashinyan has done what none of his predecessors dared: acknowledge the truth. He publicly recognised that Armenia must abandon its false narrative about Garabagh, accept international borders, change the constitution that stands as the principal barrier to peace in the South Caucasus, and finally, seek peace with its neighbours, not because of weakness, but because this is the only viable path for the country’s survival.

Had Kocharyan or Sargsyan admitted these truths when Garabagh was still under Armenian control, Armenia would be in a far stronger position today. They could have negotiated from a stance of comparative strength, avoided devastating conflict, and secured a realistic, long-term arrangement that preserved dignity without clinging to illegal occupation.

Instead, they entrenched the lie deeper, convincing people that acknowledging reality was somehow treasonous. Now that Pashinyan has finally broken that cycle, Kocharyan lashes out because the admission of truth undermines the entire political legacy on which he built his career.

Now, for Armenia, it is an era of a battle between the past and the future.

Armenia today faces a profound existential choice: embrace the painful truth, or continue chasing the fantasies that led to disaster. Pashinyan’s attempt to write a true national story, one grounded in reality rather than nationalist myth, is not a betrayal of Armenia. It is an act of rescue.

Kocharyan, by contrast, represents the politics of denial and destruction. His continual accusations, branding the prime minister an “agent” or “ignorant”, are not expressions of concern for the state. They are attempts to preserve the last remnants of the political mythology that kept the "Karabakh Clan" in power.

Armenia cannot afford to follow that path again. The region has changed irreversibly. The South Caucasus is moving towards new economic and political configurations, and Armenia must adapt if it wishes to survive as a viable, stable state.

They should grasp that revanchism brought Armenia's military defeat in 2020. Revanchism isolated it diplomatically for decades. Revanchism now threatens to tear apart its fragile internal cohesion at a time when the country desperately needs calm, pragmatism, and reform.

Kocharyan’s rhetoric is not simply inflammatory, but it is way more dangerous. Every time he repeats accusations of treason or hints at internal conspiracies, he feeds the most radical elements of Armenian society. He delays reconciliation, undermines normalisation, and reignites hostility not only inside Armenia but across the region.

Analysts, so-called experts, still plagued by doubts, may well ask why Azerbaijan should take any interest in Armenia’s domestic politics. Is Pashinyan truly such a convenient leader for Baku? I would put it differently: more than thirty years of hostility and a bloody conflict brought neither side any political or economic dividend. On the contrary, Armenia fell behind the rest of the South Caucasus in terms of development. Seen through the eyes of an investigative journalist, this is not about Pashinyan as a personality, but about the situation Armenia has landed itself in, a reality created by decades of strategic miscalculation.

When Pashinyan first came to power, he too tried to walk in the footsteps of his predecessors. The footage of him dancing the yalli in Shusha symbolised his attempt to imitate the old nationalist line. Yet he stumbled, quite literally and politically, and could not go far down that road. Even when he sought to build a road to Jabrayil, the policy unravelled and collapsed beneath him. Only then did he grasp the truth: he had been travelling down a blind alley.

Admitting the truth is bitter, and many mistake it for weakness. It is always easy to act tough from the sidelines, far from the battlefield. But had Kocharyan found himself in the same situation, one doubts whether either Armenia or even Yerevan would still stand today. Whatever remains of the Armenian state has survived largely because Pashinyan had the courage to acknowledge reality rather than cling to a defunct myth.

Armenia could not continue promoting its fabricated narrative indefinitely. It had to be consigned to the dustbin of history. Pashinyan is now trying to write a truthful chapter for Armenia, one that may allow the country to endure, stabilise, and ultimately escape the abyss created by its own revanchist impulses.

If Armenia is to survive this critical historical moment, it must abandon revanchism entirely. It must reject the political culture of denial, deception, and conspiracy that Kocharyan embodies. And it must allow Pashinyan, or any future leader committed to reality, to rebuild Armenia’s national narrative on a foundation of truth.

Armenia can have peace, stability, and a future, or it can have Kocharyan’s illusions. It cannot have both.