Bishops and diocesan primates of the Armenian Apostolic Church in Armenia have accused the Pashinyan government of pursuing a “defeatist” foreign policy vis-à-vis Azerbaijan.

The church leaders, in a statement today, point to the Armenian government’s readiness to return several villages in the country’s Tavush Province to Azerbaijan.

They say Pashinyan’s government is giving into threat made by Baku regarding these villages.

The Armenian prime minister, last month, said Armenia risks a new war with Azerbaijan if it doesn’t return the four villages it’s held since the early 1990s.

“With this defeatist approach, with successive painful territorial concessions, in fact, Azerbaijan's false claims and reprehensible ambitions regarding the territories of Armenia are legitimized by the international community,” the clerics write.

They describe the Pashinyan government policy to create an “era of peace” based on unilateral concessions as a pipe-dream and rife with danger.