Narek Karapetyan, who heads the electoral list of the Strong Armenia party, denied a publication by National Assembly Speaker Alen Simonyan and stated that he does not and has never held Russian citizenship. He made the remarks in a Facebook video.

While campaigning, National Assembly Speaker Alen Simonyan published a document on his Telegram channel allegedly indicating that Narek Karapetyan was a Russian citizen and wrote: “Is Narek Karapetyan a Russian citizen?”

“I am not a Russian citizen. Apart from Armenian citizenship, I have never had any other citizenship. I have lived in Russia less than, for example, in England or Switzerland. Alen Robertovich, don’t do things like this,” Karapetyan said.

Armenia’s Central Electoral Commission (CEC) verified documents confirming that Narek Karapetyan, the top candidate on the “Strong Armenia” alliance list, holds only Armenian citizenship during the candidate registration process. This was stated by CEC spokesperson Seda Ghukasyan, according to Factor.am .

“Information about the electoral lists of all political forces participating in the elections is available on the CEC website. All candidates registered by the CEC means that the commission has preliminarily verified the relevant documents concerning those individuals, including documents confirming permanent residence in Armenia over the past four years and Armenian citizenship. These documents are provided to candidates by the Migration and Citizenship Service of the Interior Ministry and submitted to the CEC,” the spokesperson said.

The document published by Simonyan contains legal entity data in which ‘Russian citizen’ is listed next to the name Narek Karapetyan.