Arayik Harutyunyan, the leader of separatists, has dismissed Ruben Vardanyan, the state minister, and replaced him with Gurgen Nersisyan, the separatist prosecutor general, according to Armenian media reports.

Vardanyan, a billionaire who has recently been stripped of his Russian citizenship, was accused of engaging in illegal activities in the Karabakh economic region of Azerbaijan. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev previously stated that the Azerbaijani side will not engage in a dialogue with personalities like Vardanyan but is willing to discuss with those representatives of the Armenian community who were born in the Karabakh region of Azerbaijan and have lived there all their lives.