During the DAVOS meeting, Pashinyan suggested that the long-standing accusations of the Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire in 1915 may have been fabricated and that the topic itself was promoted by Moscow during the Cold War era.
“How is it that the narrative of the Armenian ‘genocide’ did not exist in 1939? Why did it emerge in 1950? Why did this happen? Should we try to understand this or not? Should we address these topics or not? Are we in control of our identity or not? These are questions we must discuss. These are fundamental issues we need to understand in order to solve these problems. We need to understand our history, our identity,” Pashinyan stated.
For the first time, an Armenian leader explicitly suggested that the topic of “genocide” was utilized by Moscow as a geopolitical tool following World War II and the onset of the Cold War, after Turkey joined the Western bloc. In other words, the Soviet Union weaponized this ideological narrative against Kemalist Turkey.
This is not the first time Pashinyan has touched on the subject of “genocide” in ways that deviate from the traditional national narrative. In April 2024, during his address marking the anniversary of the 1915 events, he referred to the tragedy as the “Great Massacre,” a term historically used by those who avoided or denied the use of the term “genocide,” including U.S. presidents.
Moreover, Pashinyan argued that the roots of the 1915 tragedy lay in false promises made to Armenians and their misplaced expectations.
He specifically noted: “During World War I, a massive tragedy occurred, and the Armenian people—lacking statehood, having lost it centuries ago, and forgetting the traditions of governance—became victims of geopolitical intrigues and false promises. Above all, they lacked the political wisdom to understand the world and its rules.”
