Simonian unexpectedly reopened the debate on the Armenian death toll in the six-week war in Nagorno-Karabakh in a short social media post. His spokesman, Movses Harutiunian, said he did so in response to continuing “false” statements putting the figure at around 5,000.
“This number [cited by the speaker] was officially published a long time ago,” Simonian said in a follow-up video posted on Facebook. “The problem is that those scoundrel politicians have tried so much to hurt us with other figures and earn political dividends that this number seems new.”
In fact, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian, other officials as well as state bodies have given differing numbers in the last five years, fueling opposition questions about their credibility. Opposition leaders and other critics of the Armenian government have for years challenged the authorities to prove the accuracy of their data by releasing a complete list of the identified casualties.
No such list has been made public so far. Opposition lawmakers emphasized this fact when they responded to Simonian later in the day. One of them, Artur Khachatrian, accused the speaker allied to Pashinian of “manipulating numbers.”
“They are trying to reduce the pain of our losses in this way,” Khachatrian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
The figure mentioned by Simonian was first reported by Armenia’s Investigative Committee earlier this month. The law-enforcement agency reported heavier tolls in February this year. In particular, it told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service that 3,937 soldiers and 44 civilians died and 191 other Armenians went missing during the hostilities stopped by a Russian-brokered ceasefire in November 2020.
A spokesperson for the Investigative Committee on Thursday blamed the discrepancy on an “error” committed by one of its investigators. The official also made clear that the committee will not release a collated list of the names of the war victims.
The Armenian opposition holds Pashinian primarily responsible for the outcome and the human cost of the Karabakh war. The premier has put the blame on the country’s former leaders. In August, Pashinian sparked more opposition allegations of a deliberate sacrifice of Karabakh and thousands of Armenian lives when he admitted rejecting international proposals to end the Karabakh conflict before the disastrous war.