Pashinian also made clear that Armenia’s government will not seek international condemnation of the demolition of the Holy Mother of God Cathedral in Stepanakert which was confirmed on Wednesday by satellite images obtained by RFE/RL.
“We need to be careful about these topics, especially now, because such topics are a double-edged sword,” he told reporters. “As the New Testament says, you will be judged with the same judgment you judge, and you will be measured with the same measure you measure.”
“We will look, we will analyze. I do not think that, given our previous experience, we will make this a subject of international discussions at the state level,” he said.
The remarks are consistent with Yerevan’s failure to officially react to the demolition which was first reported by exiled Karabakh Armenian activists on Tuesday. Some of them accused Pashinian’s government complicity in Baku’s continuing elimination of traces of centuries-long Armenian presence in Karabakh.
The Armenian government essentially stopped accusing Azerbaijan of systematically desecrating or destroying Armenian monuments in Karabakh after Pashinian first recognized Azerbaijani sovereignty over the territory in 2022. Pashinian has repeatedly declared in recent years that the Karabakh issue is closed for his administration. His detractors say the destruction of the Stepanakert cathedral makes mockery of his regular claims that “peace has been established between Armenia and Azerbaijan.”
The Armenian Apostolic Church made a similar point when it strongly condemned its demolition later on Thursday.
“It is obvious that the Azerbaijani government continues to target Armenian Christian holy sites with the aim of erasing the Armenian trace from Artsakh,” it said in a statement. “This state-level vandalism once again proves that Azerbaijan’s anti-Armenian policy has not changed, which makes statements about establishing a stable and lasting peace with Armenia questionable.”
The church said Pashinian and his government must take “urgent and effective steps” to try to stop Baku from wiping out Karabakh’s remaining Armenian cultural and spiritual heritage. It urged the international community to also help to “stop the cultural crimes in Artsakh.”
The imposing cathedral was consecrated by the Armenian Apostolic Church in 2019 after almost 13 years of construction. Its underground section was used by many Stepanakert residents as a bomb shelter during the 2020 Armenian-Azerbaijani war.
Several other Karabakh Armenian churches have also reportedly been destroyed since the 2020 Armenian-Azerbaijan war. The process appears to have accelerated following Azerbaijan’s full recapture of Karabakh in 2023.
Catholicos Garegin II, the church’s supreme head, decried it during a conference hosted by the World Council of Churches (WCC) in Switzerland last May. Pashinian launched his controversial campaign to oust Garegin shortly after that conference.