Hovik on Tigranashen Handover: Clear as Day

In a blunt assessment, Hovik Manucharyan characterizes the government’s position not as uncertainty but as deception. He asserts that Pashinyan and his team have already agreed to Aliyev’s demands and are now executing a carefully staged process to hand over Tigranashen and other territories incrementally, each step framed as a technical necessity of demarcation rather than a political choice.

Crucially, Manucharyan points to historical documentation that undermines the current approach. When Armenia joined the Soviet Union, enclaves did not exist in their current form. By the end of the Soviet era, multiple bilateral commissions had resolved border disputes through more than 100 signed protocols between Soviet Armenia and Soviet Azerbaijan, addressing the enclave issue comprehensively. These agreements were made under Soviet authority and represent the last neutral adjudication of the border.

The implication is stark: the current demarcation process is not resolving ambiguities left by history, but rather discarding settled agreements and allowing Azerbaijan to redefine borders unilaterally, with Pashinyan’s cooperation. Google Maps now marks Tigranashen as contested territory with detours, reflecting the ground reality that this strategic stronghold’s future remains negotiable despite being enshrined in Armenia’s constitution. Manucharyan’s critique suggests that officials’ refusal to confirm Tigranashen’s status is not an oversight but an intentional strategy to avoid creating a record of territorial concessions.