YEREVAN, May 31. /TASS/. Deputy Foreign Minister of Armenia Gagik Galachyan has submitted his resignation letter, Armenian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Anna Nagdalyan told TASS on Monday.
"On May 27, the Deputy Foreign Minister Gagik Galachyan submitted the letter of resignation," she reported.
At the same time, the spokeswoman herself informed that she was also stepping down, adding that she would continue with the diplomatic service. Last Thursday, Armenian Acting Foreign Minister Ara Ayvazyan also resigned.
According to Head of the Yerevan-based Caucasus Institute Alexander Iskandaryan, the resignation of the Foreign Ministry’s leadership is indicative of the crisis existing in the ruling circles of the republic. "It is particularly felt at the Foreign and Defense Ministries where the professionals work who weren’t appointed from the outside and who earned their political capital before the 2018 revolution. I don’t exclude that the resignations at the Foreign Ministry are related to that process of interaction of Armenia and Azerbaijan which involves redefining the state border," he said in a conversation with a TASS correspondent.
Following the end of military action in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone last fall, when seven regions adjacent to Nagorno-Karabakh came under Azerbaijan’s control, the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan moved to the immediate vicinity of the Syunik and Gegharkunik Regions. The situation there has been tense since May 12. Both sides report of provocations. On Thursday, Azerbaijan announced that it captured six Armenian servicemen during an attempt to cross the border. The Armenian side confirmed that the servicemen were captured yet emphasized that at the time they were involved in engineering works in the border area of Armenia’s Gegharkunik Region.
In the fall of 2020, the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh aggravated with armed clashes occurring on the disputed territory. On November 9, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan signed a joint statement on a complete ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh. According to the document, the Azerbaijani and Armenian sides would maintain the positions that they had held, a number of regions would be controlled by Azerbaijan, and Russian peacekeepers would be deployed to the region along the Lachin corridor.