New speaker of Nagorno-Karabakh parliament elected

Ashot Danielyan, a member of the “Svobodnaya Rodina” (Free Homeland) faction, has been elected speaker of the National Assembly of Nagorno-Karabakh, and his candidacy has been supported by all five factions of the parliament.

On May 21, 28 out of 33 members of the Nagorno-Karabakh parliament attended its session, and they unanimously approved Ashot Danielyan’s candidacy for the post of speaker. In addition, starting from May 21, Ashot Danielyan has been acting as the leader of Nagorno-Karabakh until the republic’s parliament elects a new president, a correspondent of the “Caucasian Knot” reports.

Gagik Bagunts served as speaker of the parliament of Nagorno-Karabakh until May 21, and he will now continue to act as vice speaker. David Ishkhanyan, the former chair of the National Assembly of Nagorno-Karabakh, was arrested by the Azerbaijani militaries in early October 2023 while he tried to leave Nagorno-Karabakh. At present, Gagik Bagunts is in custody and to appear in trial in Baku.

Public figure Sergey Shakhverdyan, the former Minister of Culture of Nagorno-Karabakh, has expressed his hope that as the chair of the parliament, Ashot Danielyan “will likely to intensify the foreign policy activities of the National Assembly of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR).” The former Minister of Culture of Nagorno-Karabakh has also added that “within the next ten days, the republic’s parliament is supposed to elect a new president of the NKR.”

This was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on May 22, 2025 at 11:55 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.