Civilnet
By Lia Avagyan
On September 27, the fifth anniversary of the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war, no senior Armenian officials were publicly reported visiting Yerablur Military Pantheon in Yerevan, where thousands of fallen soldiers are buried.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan was in New York attending the UN General Assembly. His only public reference to the anniversary was a brief social media post reading: “Glory to the martyrs and long live the Republic of Armenia.”
The 44-day conflict with Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh claimed about 4,000 Armenian lives and ended in a disastrous defeat for Armenia.
No information appeared on the government’s website regarding whether Deputy Prime Ministers Mher Grigoryan or Tigran Khachatryan visited Yerablur. President Vahagn Khachaturyan was also in the United States on a working visit.
CivilNet asked the press offices of Defense Minister Suren Papikyan and National Assembly Speaker Alen Simonyan if they had attended Yerablur on September 27. Both said they were unaware and promised to check. The defense ministry’s website and official Facebook page carried no reports of Papikyan or Chief of the General Staff Edvard Asryan visiting. There were no official updates about Simonyan either, whose last Facebook post was dated September 22.
The National Security Council’s official site and the Facebook page of Secretary Armen Grigoryan also gave no indication of a visit.
On the eve of the anniversary, Deputy Speaker Ruben Rubinyan announced a draft law designating January 27 as “Day of Remembrance and Respect.” “On January 27, let us remember and pay tribute to the fallen, and on January 28, celebrate Army Day,” Rubinyan wrote.
September 2022 anniversary also overlooked
Senior officials also stayed away from the cemetery on September 13–14, the second anniversary of Azerbaijan’s 2022 assault on Armenia’s sovereign territory, which left 224 Armenian soldiers dead and resulted in the loss of more than 200 square kilometers of land.
On the same day, the government funded “Festivar,” a music and tourism festival held in Hrazdan.
In response to CivilNet’s query why the festival coincided with the anniversary of heavy fighting, the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sports said the date was chosen because it was “the only one that matched the schedule” of singer Harout Pamboukjian and the band “Karen and Sevak.”
Asked whether holding the concert on that day could be seen as disrespectful to the memory of the fallen, the ministry replied: “Organizing the concert is also a form of tribute to the memory of fallen freedom fighters and soldiers.”
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