Pashinyan Orders Genocide Museum Director to Resign Over Action “Contradicting” Government Policy on Artsakh

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has confirmed that he personally instructed Edita Gzoyan, the director of the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute, to submit a resignation letter after an incident that he said contradicted the government’s foreign policy.

The prime minister made the statement during a government briefing on March 12. His remarks came a day after it became publicly known that Gzoyan had written a resignation letter. Despite the announcement, no official legal act confirming her dismissal had been issued at the time.

Neither the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute nor Armenia’s Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sport responded to questions about the circumstances that led to Gzoyan’s resignation letter or the legal grounds for it.

The issue stems from a visit to Armenia by U.S. Vice President JD Vance on February 10. During the visit, Vance traveled to the Armenian Genocide Memorial complex at Tsitsernakaberd in Yerevan to pay tribute to the victims of the 1915 Armenian Genocide.

Gzoyan accompanied the U.S. vice president during the visit and presented him with a book about the Artsakh issue. While guiding the delegation through the memorial complex, she also spoke about the history of three khachkars installed at Tsitsernakaberd. These cross-stones commemorate Armenians who were killed in the late twentieth-century massacres organized by the Azerbaijani government in the cities of Sumgait, Kirovabad (Ganja), and Baku.

During the tour, Gzoyan also discussed the five Armenian freedom fighters who are buried in front of the memorial wall at the complex. These fighters died during the years of the Artsakh struggle. She emphasized the connection between those events and the Armenian Genocide.

The actions during the visit later became the subject of criticism from the Armenian government.

Speaking at the March 12 briefing, Prime Minister Pashinyan said that Gzoyan’s actions contradicted the official foreign policy of Armenia and described them as a provocative step.

“When the prime minister of the country says there is no Karabakh movement, what does it mean to give a foreign guest a book about the Artsakh issue? How many people in this country can conduct foreign policy? In the Republic of Armenia, foreign policy is conducted by the government. I am the head of the government, and I conduct foreign policy, among other things. And any state official who says something that contradicts the foreign policy conducted by the Armenian government will be dismissed from their job. What is the issue here? Are we a state, or is this some kind of amateur group where we are testing our creative potential? This is a state, dear colleagues,” the prime minister said.

Pashinyan stated that the responsibility for conducting Armenia’s foreign policy belongs to the government and that state officials must follow the direction set by it.

The situation has drawn attention because the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute is one of the country’s most important historical and academic institutions, responsible for researching and preserving the memory of the Armenian Genocide and related historical events.

As of now, it remains unclear when an official decision regarding Gzoyan’s dismissal will be formally issued or who will replace her as director of the museum-institute.

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