Arkadi Ghukasyan was born in
Stepanakert in the
Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Republic of the
Azerbaijan SSR on 22 June 1957. He graduated from
Yerevan State University with a degree in linguistics in 1979. He started his career as a correspondent for the newspaper ("Soviet Karabakh"), becoming its deputy editor-in-chief in 1981. In 1991, Ghukasyan was elected to the first parliament of the newly declared
Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR). In September 1992, he was appointed political adviser to the Chairman of the State Defense Committee, and headed the NKR's delegations during
OSCE-mediated negotiations with Azerbaijan. Ghukasyan was a member of Nagorno-Karabakh's Security Council since 1993. On 23 July 1993, he became the first Foreign Minister of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. He survived an assassination attempt in 2000.
Samvel Babayan, whom he had recently sacked as defence minister, was convicted of organising the attack and sentenced to 14 years in prison. Babayan was released from imprisonment on 18 September 2004 due to health concerns, with the terms of release including a probationary period and continued disenfranchisement. In 2015, it was reported that Ghukasyan was the unofficial leader of the
Artsakh Republican Party. On 3 October 2023, Ghukasyan and two other former presidents of Artsakh,
Bako Sahakyan and
Arayik Harutyunyan, together with former
president of the
National Assembly Davit Ishkhanyan, were detained by the
State Security Service of
Azerbaijan and brought to
Baku. Ghukasyan and the other arrested former officials faced "grave criminal charges" in Azerbaijan. On 5 February 2026, an
Azerbaijan military court sentenced Ghukasyan to 20 years of imprisonment on charges such as "waging an aggressive war," "violent seizure of power", etc. == Personal life ==