Artsakh Is Armenia

By Ara Khachig Manoogian

About the Book

A law was passed. It was used. It was never repealed.

On August 5, 2019, in Stepanakert, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan declared, “Artsakh is Armenia, period.” The words became a political landmark. But the legal record behind them began decades earlier, and the consequences of the distance between those words and later government policy are still unfolding.

In Artsakh Is Armenia, investigative journalist Ara Khachig Manoogian examines what Armenia formally enacted, how its institutions applied those decisions, and how that record stands against later constitutional rulings, international commitments, and diplomatic concessions.

At the center of the investigation is Decision No. 1650-11, adopted on December 1, 1989, proclaiming the reunification of the Armenian SSR and Nagorno-Karabakh. The decision extended Armenian citizenship rights to the population of Artsakh and directed practical integration. Eight months later, Armenia’s Declaration of Independence expressly placed that decision among the foundations of the independent state.

Manoogian follows the record through the 1995 Constitution and the 1998 presidential eligibility controversy surrounding Robert Kocharyan, when the reunification decision became more than a historical declaration. It became an instrument used by the state. The book asks how a government can rely on an act for one constitutional purpose while treating its implications as absent from another.

From there, the investigation follows the events that turned the dispute into a catastrophe for the Armenians of Artsakh: Azerbaijan’s 2020 attack, the ceasefire and the captives who were never returned, the blockade of 2022 and 2023, the assault of September 2023, and the forced displacement of the population. It examines the trials of Artsakh’s leaders in Baku, the Washington declaration, the proposed transit route across Syunik, and the demand that Armenia change its Constitution.

The closing chapters set out what Armenians must do and what they must not do: lawful advocacy, the preservation of evidence, the protection of cultural heritage, accountability, and the rights of displaced people, without overstating legal conclusions or letting unsupported claims weaken a documented case.

For the Armenians forced from their homes, the prisoners held in Baku, and those working to preserve a people’s future, these questions are far from settled.

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