By Emil Danielyan
Naira Melkumian, the former foreign minister of the self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, has been appointed as an advisor to Armenian Prime Minister Andranik Markarian, the government’s press service announced on Wednesday.Markarian’s press office did not specify the former Karabakh official’s areas of responsibility in her new capacity. Officials there could not be reached for comment.
Melkumian headed the Foreign Ministry in Stepanakert from 1997 to October 2002. She worked as a Yerevan-based aide to Karabakh President Arkadi Ghukasian before the latest appointment. Ghukasian relieved her of those duties in a decree signed on Monday.
The current Karabakh foreign minister, Ashot Ghulian, is a longtime associate of Ghukasian. Melkumian, for her part, is said to be close to Armenia’s Karabakh-born President Robert Kocharian.