With the two contemporary powers in the region, the Abbasids and Byzantines, too preoccupied to concentrate their forces in subjugating the people of the region and the dissipation of several of the Armenian nakharar noble families, Ashot was able to assert himself as the leading figure of a movement to dislodge the Arabs from Armenia.
Coas dúas potencias contemporáneas da rexión, os abbássidas e os bizantinos, demasiado preocupados por concentrar as súas forzas en someter aos pobos da rexión e na disipación das diversas familias armenias nobres nakharar, Ashot foi quen de reafirmarse como a figura principal dun movemento para expulsar os árabes de Armenia.