Armenia’s government has decided to excise the image of Mount Ararat, a revered symbol of Armenian national identity, from entry and exit stamps used at official borders, in what is thought to be a further concession to neighboring Turkey.

The measure that will be implemented from November onward has provoked uproar in Armenia, whose foundational ethos is built around victimhood and resilience mingled with the sort of glory projected by Ararat’s lofty peak. There is mounting speculation that Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan will erase the majestic mountain that lies within Turkey’s borders and looms over the Armenian capital, Yerevan, from the country’s coat of arms as well. 

Former Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian summed up the mood in an editorial for Civilnet, an independent online media platform: “For Armenians, Ararat is not just a mountain across the border in Turkey; it is the heart of our heritage. … To erase Ararat from our official documents and symbols is to sever Armenians from their deepest roots. And to do so under pressure from Turkey, as appears to be the case, is a dangerous act of appeasement.”

Pashinyan, a populist iconoclast who led Armenia’s bloodless Velvet Revolution that unseated its pro-Kremlin autocrats in 2018, has been seeking to normalize ties with Turkey — the country’s historic foe. He believes that making peace with Ankara would shield his small, landlocked nation from further attacks by Azerbaijan, which — with help from Turkey and Israel — decisively defeated Armenia in a short, bloody war over Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020.