Turkish journalist Tuğçe Yılmaz is being prosecuted under Article 301 for acknowledging the Armenian Genocide after publishing “Turkey’s Armenian youth speak: 109 years of ongoing mourning.” In Turkey, stating historical facts remains criminalized.
At the same time, Armenia’s leadership under Pashinyan is retreating from the firm position the country long held on genocide recognition, including the 2010 rejection of the Zurich Protocols negotiated by Serzh Sargsyan after Turkey demanded concessions on Armenian Genocide recognition. Pashinyan’s own statements illustrate this shift. In Switzerland, he questioned why recognition gained prominence only in the 1950s, suggesting political timing rather than the documented extermination of a people, and portraying the issue as one of Armenian perception. His later clarification did little to alter the message, especially as official commemorations often avoid naming the perpetrators.
His team has reinforced this direction in a consistent pattern. Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan has said international recognition is not a ministry priority, a position echoed by MP Arsen Torosyan, who has argued that recognition should not be a foreign policy priority at all. That same downplaying continues with MP Vigen Khachatryan, who has claimed the genocide belongs to the past. Envoy on relations with Turkey and MP Ruben Rubinyan, who insists that historical issues should not obstruct normalization with Turkey, even though Turkey has blocked Armenia for exactly these historical issues. While MP Andranik Kocharyan, a senior figure in the ruling party, questioned whether the accepted figure of one and a half million victims might be more or less, using language that mirrors familiar minimization tactics long employed by denialists.
The consequences of this shift became visible in parliament, where Pashinyan’s majority voted down a bill that would have criminalized denial and justification of the genocide. At the very moment Turkey prosecutes journalists for acknowledging history, Armenia’s government declined to defend that same truth in its own legal framework.
