Levon Hakobi Ter-Petrosyan (; born 9 January 1945), also known by his initials LTP, is an Armenian politician and historian who served as the first president of Armenia from 1991 until his resignation in 1998.
A senior researcher at the Matenadaran institute, he rose to prominence as a leading figure of the Karabakh movement for the unification of the Armenian-populated Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia, which began in 1988. After Armenia declared independence from the Soviet Union in September 1991, Ter-Petrosyan was elected by a landslide as the country's first president in the 1991 Armenian presidential election, receiving an overwhelming public support. In his role as a head of state, he led the country through the First Nagorno-Karabakh War with neighboring Azerbaijan.
He was reelected in the 1996 presidential election, which was marred by accusations of electoral fraud, sparking mass protests led by runner-up Vazgen Manukyan. The mass rallies were suppressed by military force. Due to disagreements with key members of his government over a peace proposal for the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, especially Defence Minister Vazgen Sargsyan and Prime Minister Robert Kocharyan, Ter-Petrosyan resigned on 3 February 1998.
From his resignation up until 2007, Ter-Petrosyan was inactive in the political scene. However, he made a political comeback in September 2007 and ran for president in 2008. He faced one of his former government members, then-Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan. According to official results, he earned 21.5% of the total vote. Ter-Petrosyan claimed the elections were rigged and led thousands of his supporters in mass protests against the alleged electoral fraud and called for new elections. After a week of mass protests, the government used police and military force to disperse his supporters, resulting in the deaths of ten people on 1 March 2008.
On 1 August 2008, Ter-Petrosyan founded the Armenian National Congress (ANC), with more than a dozen political parties and non-governmental organizations joining forces. Being the main opposition party in Armenia at the time, the ANC was out of the parliament and was primarily involved in street protests against Serzh Sargsyan's government. They organized mass rallies in 2011, forcing the government to grant several political concessions. In parliamentary elections in 2012, the ANC received 7.1% of the popular vote, gaining 7 seats. Ter-Petrosyan's party lost those seats in the following elections and has not entered parliament since. He led the ANC's electoral list during snap parliamentary elections in June 2021, where the party again failed to enter parliament.
Early life and education Ter-Petrosyan was born on 9 January 1945 in Aleppo, Syria, to an Armenian family descended from a long line of priests living near Musa Dagh in the Hatay region, now located in southern Turkey. His family took part in the armed resistance at Musa Dagh during the Armenian genocide before fleeing to Syria. His father, Hakob Ter-Petrosyan, was first a member of the Hunchakian Party and later a founding member of the Syrian Communist Party.
He had three brothers, Telman (1936–1997), Petros (1938–2013), and Kamo (born 1948), as well as a younger sister, Iskuhi (1953–2015). His family emigrated to Soviet Armenia in 1947, when he was still an infant, just before the birth of his only living younger brother, Kamo, and one grandchild, Nerses Ter-Petrosyan.
In 1969, he graduated from the Oriental Studies Department of Yerevan State University. In 1972, he completed his postgraduate studies at Leningrad State University. In 1987, he received his doctoral degree from the same university. From 1972 to 1979, Ter-Petrosyan worked as junior researcher at the Manuk Abeghyan Literature Institute of the Armenian Academy of Sciences. From 1979 to 1984, he held the position of science secretary at Matenadaran, a research institution named after Saint Mesrop Mashtots.
Since 1984, he has worked at Matenadaran as a senior researcher.
Academic career Ter-Petrosyan wrote his doctoral dissertation on the Assyrian language and its ties to Armenian. In addition, he is the author of more than 30 books, about 80 scientific articles in Armenian, French, and Russian, as well as thousands of political publications in the multilingual press (speeches, articles, interviews, press conferences, etc.). He is a member of the Writers Union of Armenia, the French Asian Society, the Venice Academy of Mekhitarist, and a recipient of honorary doctorates from the University of La Verne, the University of Sofia, Paris-Sorbonne University, and the University of Strasbourg.
Karabakh movement and the independence of Armenia
In late 1987 and early 1988, the Karabakh movement emerged in Soviet Armenia and the Armenian-majority Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast with the goal of transferring the autonomous region from Azerbaijan to Armenia. On 19 May 1988, Levon Ter-Petrosyan, Vazgen Manukyan, and 9 others founded a new Karabakh Committee, which soon took leadership of the Karabakh movement from the older committee led by Zori Balayan and Igor Muradyan. Levon Ter-Petrosyan was the de facto leader of the committee. Under the leadership of Ter-Petrosyan and Manukyan, the Karabakh movement transformed from being purely concerned with the unification of Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia into a broader movement for democratization.
From 10 December 1988 to 31 May 1989, Ter-Petrosyan was imprisoned in Moscow's Matrosskaya Tishina prison, alongside other members of the Karabakh Committee. After their release, they returned to Yerevan and continued their activities. In 1989, Ter-Petrosyan and the other members of the Karabakh Committee founded a political party called the Pan-Armenian National Movement (ANM, also known by its Armenian acronym HHSh). Later on, Ter-Petrosyan became the party's chairman. On 27 August 1989, he was elected as a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the Armenian SSR, and reelected on 20 May 1990. In elections in May 1990, the Pan-Armenian National Movement won a majority of seats in the Supreme Soviet of Armenia, becoming the first non-communist party to take power in a Soviet republic. On 4 August of the same year, Ter-Petrosyan was elected Chairman of the Supreme Council of Armenia, becoming the de facto leader of Armenia.
As clashes between newly formed Armenian militias and Soviet forces intensified in mid-1990, Ter-Petrosyan was pressured by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to disarm the militias. Ter-Petrosyan complied, but the militias continued their activities in Nagorno-Karabakh. On 23 August 1990, Armenia formally declared its intention to become an independent state with Nagorno-Karabakh as an integral part. On 12 September 1990, Ter-Petrosyan met with Gorbachev, Azerbaijani leader Ayaz Mutalibov, and other Soviet officials. At the meeting, Gorbachev accepted Ter-Petrosyan's demands to withdraw the Soviet Army from Armenian settlements and create a line of demarcation between Armenians and Azeris in Nagorno-Karabakh. Although Ter-Petrosyan initially expressed his willingness to include Armenia in a new union of sovereign states to replace the USSR, he found Mikhail Gorbachev's proposal for a new union treaty unacceptable. Armenia was one of six Soviet republics that refused to participate in the March 1991 referendum on the New Union Treaty.
As Armenia moved toward independence, further clashes occurred both within Armenia and on the border with Azerbaijan in May 1991, and Soviet troops undertook an operation to deport Armenian villagers from parts of Azerbaijan. Ter-Petrosyan publicly stated on 6 May 1991 that "To all intents and purposes, the Soviet Union has declared war on Armenia." Ter-Petrosyan opposed the coup attempt against Gorbachev in August 1991. He attended unsuccessful negotiations with Ayaz Mutalibov mediated by Boris Yeltsin and Nursultan Nazarbayev in late September. On 20 September 1991, Armenians voted overwhelmingly in favor of independence, and the country officially declared independence three days later.
Presidency: 1991–1998
First term
Ter-Petrosyan was elected the first President of the newly independent Armenia on 16 October 1991, receiving 83% of the vote. On 18 October 1991, he signed onto Gorbachev's failed attempt to form an economic community out of the collapsing Soviet Union and preserve the economic ties between the republics (only 8 of the 15 republics agreed to sign). Ter-Petrosyan then brought Armenia into the Commonwealth of Independent States, which formed after the formal abolition of the Soviet Union in December 1991. Ter-Petrosyan appointed Vazgen Sargsyan the first Defense Minister of independent Armenia in December 1991. On 28 January 1992, the Armenian government passed the historical decree "On the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Armenia", which formally created the Armed Forces of Armenia. In late 1991 and early 1992, the fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh expanded into a full-scale war. With the rise of hostilities in Nagorno-Karabakh, in March 1992, Sargsyan announced that Armenia needed a 30,000-strong army to maintain security. Under Ter-Petrosyan's leadership as the commander-in-chief on 9 May 1992, the Armenian forces recorded their first major military success in Nagorno-Karabakh with the capture of Shusha. Another significant victory for the Armenian forces was recorded weeks later with the capture of Lachin, which connects Armenia proper with Nagorno-Karabakh. In the summer of 1992, following the launch of Operation Goranboy, the Armenian forces had major losses. Ter-Petrosyan dismissed Defense Minister Vazgen Sargsyan, as between October 1992 and March 1993, Sargsyan served as the Presidential Adviser on Defence Affairs and the Presidential Envoy to Border Regions of Armenia, Ter-Petrosyan appointed his comrade-turned-rival Vazgen Manukyan to the post. According to Vazgen Manukyan, on several occasions, the more cautious Ter-Petrosyan was, he deliberately not fully informed about the extent of the Armenian military's participation in operations in Nagorno-Karabakh. In early April 1993, the Armenian forces captured Kelbajar, a city outside the originally contested areas, causing international attention to the conflict. Turkey closed its border with Armenia, while the United Nations passed a resolution condemning the act. Vazgen Manukyan was dismissed from his post in August 1993. In the summer of 1993, Armenian forces gained more territories and, by August, controlled Fizuli, Jebrail, and Zangelan. It was estimated that during Ter-Petrosian's presidency, the fact that a significant share of the country's GDP was spent on defense contributed significantly to the outcome of the war and the formation of the army. By early 1994, both countries were devastated by the war. On 5 May, the Bishkek Protocol was signed by the heads of the parliaments of Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. The Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, backed by Armenia, established de facto control of these lands. The war ended in an Armenian victory with the signing of a ceasefire agreement in May 1994 by representatives of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic.
Despite Ter-Petrosyan's efforts to establish normal relations with Turkey, which included arranging for the transport of wheat to Armenia from the EU through Turkish territory and attending the funeral of Turkish president Turgut Özal in Ankara, the capture of Kalbajar district by Armenian forces in April 1993 significantly worsened relations with Turkey. That month Turkey closed its border with Armenia. As on other occasions, Vazgen Manukyan. deliberately presented only a small part of the Kalbajar operation to Ter-Petrosyan. The Armenian-Turkish border remains closed to this day and the two countries have no diplomatic relations.