Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said he personally asked the director of the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute to submit a resignation letter.
“What does it mean to give a foreign guest a book on the ‘Artsakh issue’?” he said.
Pashinyan made the remarks while responding to a question about the resignation request submitted by the director of the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute.
“I asked the director of the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute to write a resignation letter — on my instruction,” he said during a briefing, http://Panorama.am reported.
Responding to a journalist’s observation that the museum director appears to have been removed at the prime minister’s request after presenting U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance with a book about Artsakh and discussing the topic, Pashinyan said he regarded the move as provocative.
“Yes, I considered it a provocative action that contradicts the foreign policy pursued by the government, and I asked that a resignation letter be submitted. When the country’s prime minister says there is no Karabakh movement, what does it mean to present a foreign guest with a book on the ‘Artsakh issue’? How many people in this country can conduct foreign policy?
Foreign policy in Armenia is conducted by the Armenian government, and any state official in Armenia who says something that contradicts the government’s foreign policy must be dismissed. What is there to discuss here? Are we a state or an amateur group?
This is a state with its governing logic and state system. The government determines foreign policy. I am the head of the government — including me, yes,” he said.
The day before, the press service of the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute reported that the foundation’s director, Edita Gzoyan, had already submitted a resignation request. However, no corresponding legal act has yet been published.
