Claim: Lieutenant Colonel Jirair Sefilian served in the Armed Forces of Armenia for 15 years, and was awarded the First Degree Order of the Combat Cross; he has not been involved in politics after his armed forces service.
Evidence: In 1999 he left the A.R.F. Sefilian is one of the key figures of the Sasna Tsrer Pan-Armenian Party. Since 2001, Sefilian has been coordinating the activities of the public initiative group, "Liberated territories". On 30 October 2008, Sefilian alongside intellectuals and a group of prominent activists founded the Miatsum (Unification) National Initiative which campaigns against Armenian territorial concessions to Azerbaijan over the Karabakh dispute.