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Opinion: Armenia Close To The Brink
Opposition Protest, Liberty Square, Yerevan, Armenia © Onnik James Krikorian 2007 Bagrat Galstanyan, the hardline cleric who led street protests against the start of border demarcation between Armenia and Azerbaijan and called for the resignation or impeachment of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, has been placed in pre-trial detention for two months. More than a dozen others have also been detained, with that number expected to rise. They are accused of plotting a coup ahead of next year's...
Armenia’s Rift Between Church and State Deepens
Armenia finds itself in deepening discord between its political and religious elites. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s unprecedented public attacks on Catholicos Karekin II, head of the Armenian Apostolic Church, mark further escalation in a personal feud waged since the 2018 Velvet Revolution. It has worsened each year since, and not least since Karekin II approved the participation of his own clergy to join protests against Pashinyan in 2022 and for one to lead them in 2024.
Pashinyan Escalates Tensions With Armenian Apostolic Church
Armenia is again gripped by a dramatic confrontation between its political and religious elites. Recent public attacks by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on Catholicos Karekin II, the head of the Armenian Apostolic Church, are the latest in a series of standoffs since 2018 that reflect a broader struggle between Armenia’s revolutionary present and its entrenched past. This comes a year after Karekin II approved of street protests led by one of his archbishops to force Pashinyan’s resignation. Pashinyan has accused the Catholicos of violating his vow of celibacy and fathering a child. These accusations are not new. They last surfaced in the Armenian media over a decade ago.
Pashinyan Targets Remnants of Old Regime as Election Showdown Looms
Ten months before his inauguration as Catholicos, Karekin II stands next to Armenian President Robert Kocharyan at an official event in Spitak, Armenia © Onnik James Krikorian 1998 For over a week now, the Armenian public has been subjected to another unedifying spectacle between the country’s political and spiritual leadership. Tirades posted on social media by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan targeting Armenian Catholicos Karekin II, who he accuses of fathering at least one child despite an...
Armenia’s Political Climate Heats Up as Elections Draw Closer
Amid growing tensions in the Armenian National Assembly, Armenia’s political climate continues to intensify ahead of next year’s parliamentary elections. The opposition is ramping up efforts to discredit Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, this time criticizing his policy of normalizing relations with neighboring Türkiye. The situation has been further inflamed by an incident in which an opposition blogger was reportedly assaulted by pro-Pashinyan members of a Yerevan district council (Azatutyun, May 2).
Armenia Braces for a Turbulent Pre-Election Period
Ballots printed for the last ever direct presidential elections in Armenia © Onnik James Krikorian 2008 With parliamentary elections in Armenia just over a year away, opposition figures and some analysts are increasingly questioning Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s prospects for re-election. Critics argue that he has failed to fulfil his widely promoted peace agenda and hold him accountable for the exodus of approximately 100,000 ethnic Armenians from the former Soviet-era Nagorno-Karabakh...
Armenian Local Elections a Barometer for Pashinyan’s Political Future
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan finds himself facing a turbulent political landscape following snap local elections in the municipalities of Gyumri and Parakar late last month . Despite municipal votes often being dismissed as minor, the outcome of the March 30 elections carries national weight. In both Gyumri and Parakar, Pashinyan’s ruling political party, Civil Contract, failed to secure a majority of the votes. The elections were widely considered a referendum on Pashinyan’s premiership. Pashinyan’s approval ratings hover around 11 percent, according to a survey published in January of this year. This, combined with the election results in Gyumri and Parakar, means that Pashinyan’s political survivability may be in question.
Wounds and Empathy in the Armenia-Azerbaijan Conflict
Upon visiting Karabakh in 1994, there were two possible routes for my return to Yerevan. The first was the same way I arrived by military helicopter, and the second was by road. With no highway in place at the time, that would take longer and prove more challenging.
Armenia-Azerbaijan Dialogue – Flogging a Dead Horse?
Even though many believed a second Trump presidency was unlikely or even impossible, his re-election last November demonstrated how many people prefer to favour dreams over reality, transforming fears into self-fulfilling prophecies. This is a situation that can best describe how Track II diplomacy in the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict has been conducted over time.