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Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan, the leader of a protest movement aimed at ousting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and stopping his territorial concessions to Azerbaijan, claimed that the movement prevented the “final collapse of Armenian statehood”.

Speaking to reporters before parliamentary hearings on an opposition resolution concerning Armenia’s Declaration of Independence on Thursday, Galstanyan warned of imminent threats to Armenian statehood due to the “fatal and devastating” agreements signed by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on 9 November 2020 and afterwards.

“One of the documents paved the way for Artsakh’s surrender. None of them was introduced to the Constitutional Court or the parliament,” the archbishop underscored, accusing the government of “complicity in Pashinyan’s crimes”.

“We made every effort to prevent the final collapse of Armenian statehood. It’s true that we failed [to stop the handover of border areas] in Kirants and Voskepar, but we forced the other major processes to slow down,” he stated.

“A risk of renewed war will always be there under the current government,” Galstanyan added, pointing to new demands put forward by Azerbaijan.