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Tatevik Hayrapetyan, a Yerevan-based exert on Azerbaijan, has deplored the Armenian leadership’s silence over the Azerbaijani occupation of Armenian territories one year after the deadly Azeri attack.

Azerbaijan launched a full-scale attack on Armenia early on 13 September, which continued until the late evening of 14 September. 224 people, including 3 civilians, were killed in Azerbaijani shelling. Three Armenian soldiers are still missing.

In a social media post, Hayrapetyan cited Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan as saying in late 2022 that as a result of three attacks, Azerbaijan had occupied about 140 square kilometers of Armenia's sovereign territory.

“Previously, Pashinyan said that 40-45 sq. km of Armenian territory was occupied as a result of the Azerbaijani invasion on 21 May 2021,” she wrote, highlighting that Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan told lawmakers on March 24 last year that Azerbaijan had occupied about 150 square kilometers of Armenia's sovereign territory following the September aggression.

“A year later no one gives any figures or speaks about the occupied territories of Armenia, no one talks about the full-scale attacks against Armenia, no one says that we lost over 200 lives in two days,” the expert stated, adding the silence is likely aimed at not harming the “false and dangerous peace agenda” promoted by Pashinyan’s administration.

“The issue of the occupied Armenian territories has quickly dropped off the agenda, because Pashinyan cannot force Aliyev to withdraw [Azeri troops] from Armenia’s occupied territories even in exchange for ceding control over the interstate roads connecting Artsakh and Armenia to Iran and Armenia to Georgia. Therefore, the topic is forgotten as soon as possible. This is all you need to know about Pashinyan's negotiating abilities and ‘achievements’,” she said, expressing condolences to the victims’ families and friends.