The President of Armenia, Armen Sarkissian, announced this Sunday (23) his resignation for lack of power to influence the country’s domestic and foreign policy. “We live in a reality (…) in which the president cannot veto laws that he considers inconvenient for his people and for the state,” said Sarkisian, appointed by parliament in March 2018, in a message posted on the Armenian presidency’s website.
The 68-year-old’s resignation comes amid tensions with the government led by the prime minister. Nikol Pashinyan, whom Sarkisian asked to step down after the country’s defeat in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict with Azerbaijan. “I thought a lot about it and after four years of intense work I made the decision to step down as head of state,” said Sarkisian.
The politician stated that his decision is “not emotional” and is related to the lack of tools to influence the country’s destiny in “complex times” for its people. “Today, more than ever, we need to take well-thought-out measures (…). We have no right to make mistakes again,” said Sarkisian, who criticized the Armenian president’s lack of constitutional powers to “help his country.” which became a parliamentary republic after a referendum in 2015.
Speaking to the EFE Agency, the director of the Caucasus Institute, Alexander Iskandaryan, highlighted that Sarkisian’s resignation is a reflection of Armenia’s “growing division of political elites” after the war in Nagorno-Karabakh in November 2020.
The conflict, in which Azerbaijan won with the active help of Turkey, meant that Armenia lost almost 70% of the territories it had controlled in the region since the end of the 1992-1994 war. “Relations between Armenia’s President and Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan have not been good for a long time. There is also a big division in Parliament,” explained Iskandaryan. However, he stressed that Sarkisian’s resignation took many by surprise.
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