“Give me just one example of post-conflict peace established without a system of guarantees,” Kocharian said during a meeting with voters in the northwestern town of Maralik. “Of course it’s not possible. The absence of a system of guarantees can only mean one thing: peace depends on the whims of one person. This is not peace. This means that there is a strong party and a weak party, and the weak party will always be suppressed. In this case it’s Armenia.”
“Alternatively, you have to create a balance of forces. But that will take years,” argued the 71-year-old ex-president whose Hayastan alliance is one of the main opposition contenders in the June 7 elections.
Kocharian said that the United States, Russian and France could act as such guarantors, having for decades co-headed the OSCE Minsk Group on Nagorno-Karabakh. The group was dissolved last September as a result of yet another concession made by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian during his talks with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev hosted by U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House.
The August 2025 talks resulted in the initialing of an Armenian-Azerbaijani peace treaty. Baku continues to make its signing conditional on a change of Armenia’s constitution and the opening of a land corridor for Azerbaijan through a key Armenian region. Nevertheless, Pashinian has since regularly asserted that peace has already been established between the two South Caucasus countries. This is the central theme of his and his Civil Contract party’s election campaign.
“I congratulate all of you on this peace,” Pashinian told supporters on Wednesday during a campaign trip to the Aragatsotn province.
“But this peace has enemies today,” he added, seemingly alluding to his opposition challengers.
Kocharian and other Armenian opposition leaders say that Baku will clinch further unilateral concessions from Yerevan if Pashinian remains in power. They claim that Aliyev’s ultimate goal is to end Armenia’s existence as a viable state.
Aliyev has repeatedly demanded that Yerevan ensure the return of Azerbaijanis who lived in Soviet Armenia until the late 1980s. He has said that as many as 300,000 Azerbaijanis must be allowed to settle in Armenia. Pashinian rejected late last month opposition claims that he will bow to this demand if reelected.