On August 13, another death was recorded in the army.

And recently, as we wrote, the RA Ministry of Defense “made a decision” not to spread messages in such cases (we are not talking about specific cases, or the relative of a dead soldier or officer requested it – M.P.). Moreover, in his interview with various media these days, the spokesman of the Minister of Defense, Aram Torosyan, justified that the Investigative Committee is also a state body, the Main Military Investigative Department is part of it, and there is no problem if there is only a report from the Central Committee.

Of course, we have repeatedly expressed our disagreement with this. And not long after the interviews of the spokesperson of the Ministry of Defense yesterday, the RA Ministry of Defense was the first to report about the tragic incident recorded on August 13. “On August 13, the body of Grigor Edgar Zakaryan, a soldier of the N military unit of the Ministry of Defense, was found with a gunshot wound. An investigation is underway to fully clarify the circumstances of the incident.”

Later, the Investigative Committee informed that criminal proceedings have been initiated in connection with the death of a soldier of the Military Unit N of the Ministry of Defense, and the necessary investigative and administrative actions are being carried out. At the time of writing the article, the committee had not yet indicated the article under which the proceedings were initiated, although initial hypotheses of suicide were put forward in the press.

And in his briefing with journalists after the government session, Nikol Pashinyan said that on the morning of August 13, he discussed the situation in the army with RA Defense Minister Suren Papikyan.

“In the near future, there will be certain personnel solutions in the bodies that are directly responsible for this problem. I have made a decision that we will have a change in the Military Police, in the Department of Morale and Psychological Support of the Ministry of Defense. And we will analyze in detail why our efforts in that direction do not give us the desired result, and we will come to conclusions. Yes, there should be individual responsibility. But My assessment is not that in this situation, the Chief of General Staff and the Minister of Defense are not making enough efforts to solve this problem.“, he elaborated. Let’s remember that a similar situation happened in 2020. in February, when Pashinyan decided, in the context of the deaths in the army, that Karen Abrahamyan should be relieved of the position of the commander of the Armed Forces, and he should be replaced by Jalal Harutyunyan, personnel changes also took place in the RA Armed Forces. the heads of the Department of Morale and Psychological Support of the Armed Forces and the Military Police were dismissed.

And the fact that Ashot Zakaryan, the head of the RA Military Police, should have been dismissed a long time ago, who has been in this position since August 6, 2020, is not being discussed. But that does not mean that former police chief Aram Hovhannisyan should be considered as a candidate for that position. In fact, this appointment will be an indicator of whether they want to change the situation in the army, taking into account how much Aram Hovhannisyan was able to reduce the crime rate outside the army, not to mention other rules of conduct.

As for Seryozha Stepanyan, the head of the Department of Morale and Psychological Support of the Armed Forces of the RA Armed Forces, who was appointed to this position in February 2022, before the developments related to the gunners, his name was mentioned in a positive context, but after this topic came up, his name was also associated with it, because he participated in relevant meetings in the Ministry of Defense. In addition to this, the order of Minister of Defense Suren Papikyan issued on January 30, by which the 2000 law was considered invalid. Order No. 728 of the Minister of Defense of the Republic of Armenia of July, it is noted that in 2026 From February 1, the activities of the leader of the Spiritual Service of the RA Armed Forces and the spiritual servants appointed by the Armenian Apostolic Holy Church in the RA defense system will be stopped. After this, the head of the General Staff is instructed that before this order enters into force, spiritual service must be carried out by persons conscripted for compulsory military service and assigned to the military position of senior colonel or colonel in the RA Armed Forces. Under the general coordination of the Department of Morale and Psychological Support of the General Staff of the RA Armed Forces and under the direct subordination of the commander of the military unit of the place of service.

By the way, in this context, it should be noted that the expulsion of artillerymen from the army had a certain negative effect, especially since there are not psychological officers in all military units.

It should be noted that the institute of psychologist-officers was introduced in 2013, which, of course, needs improvement. In other words, no matter how much the dismissal of this or that person is considered as a solution to the issue, it can never eliminate the deep problems in the army, if other necessary steps are not taken. And if the new appointments were also wrong, there is almost no reason for optimism. By the way, correct command appointments in corps, military units, and troops play a very important role. Does today’s soldier, in the person of the commander, have a good example in all places? When we made the decision to leave, did we think about the primary benefit of the soldier or our own politics? Moreover, let’s see if who today have free access to military units, i.e., should obscure tiktokers serve as a good example for soldiers? Are we organizing a meeting with the right former military men, heroes who understand the soldier’s language well?

And in the army there are problems that lead to suicides, murders, and they have other deep reasons, for example, sleeping in position, which we have talked about many times. For example, has the army leadership investigated which army corps or military unit, especially after the reduction of the term of service, have frequent incidents of sleeping in position, what kind of tension is there in combat duty here due to proximity to enemy positions or frequent targeting, how acute is the problem of human resources? In other words, how many hours does the soldier sleep, how many hours does the shift take place, is there a problem of human resources, and depending on that, is there a problem of lack of sleep? if there is no such question, then the soldier’s inability to endure may be caused by other things. On the other hand, a soldier sleeping in position being reprimanded by a superior must consider a number of security risks at that moment and try to think whether the officer is giving him an emotional reprimand at that moment, thinking about his own safety. In turn, regardless of everything, an officer or a fellow soldier should be more careful in his position when making a remark to another soldier, that remark should not be offensive or humiliating. Everything is very flexible and explained in the right way.

Let’s tell a story here.

Many years ago, Leonid Azgaldyan’s combat friends told that he once saw a sleeping soldier, woke him up, and replaced him himself, and Azdaldyan’s squad had strict discipline, smoking and drinking were forbidden. Has any commander taken such a step today, moreover, will the soldier sleep next time if he knows that the commander will stay awake instead of him? Furthermore, how many soldiers today would risk their lives for their commander? And such cases happened, moreover, not only during the war. This is a matter of serious, long and objective discussion.

Let’s return to personnel issues and Nikol Pashinyan’s formulation that there should be individual responsibility. Now, if the head of the Department of Morale and Psychological Support of the Armed Forces of the RA Armed Forces is considered to be responsible, shouldn’t the head of the Human Rights and Welfare Organization Center of the RA Ministry of Defense, Hrayr Hovakimyan, close to Minister of Defense Suren Papikyan, who has been in that responsible position for about two years, before that he was an assistant of the Ministry of Defense?

And one of the problems of the Human Rights and Welfare Organization Center of the RA Ministry of Defense is, in particular, The coordination and coordination of the process of strengthening human rights and welfare in different divisions of the RA Ministry of Defense and the Armed Forces, the targets of the powers are as follows:

■ Ensuring the activities of the Ministry of Defense “Hotline” and conducting analyses,

■ Implementation of complex studies (researches) on the state of human rights and welfare strengthening in the RA defense sector (including by divisions) and development of recommendations on them,

■ Organization of visits to departments, etc., for the purpose of operational assessment of the state of human rights and welfare strengthening in the field of defense or study of specific target problems.

Of course, we understand that in the army it is not possible to completely exclude painful cases as a result of non-statutory relationships, but the question is: what are we doing to reduce them, to what extent do the statements about the wishes of the country and the army leadership match the logic of practical steps?

In the end, the question arises: what “walls” are Minister Suren Papikyan and Head of General Staff Edward Asryan facing, if their efforts are sufficient, but tragic cases continue to be recorded in the army? And where does Nikol Pashinyan’s political responsibility begin in this situation? For now, we have to wait for new appointments and possibly other personnel changes.

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Iraqi Kurdistan President Nechirwan Barzani’s meeting with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa was a significant event in regional politics, reflecting Erbil’s growing role in regional affairs.

According to regional officials interviewed by Al-Monitor, the meeting was initiated by the Syrian leader as part of Barzani’s first official visit to Damascus. Photographs of a large Kurdish flag (compared to an Iraqi flag) indicated a friendly disposition on the part of the host country to overcome a long-standing internecine conflict (how well it succeeded is a separate question). Barzani was accompanied by a group of businessmen for negotiations on the development of economic ties between Syria and Iraqi Kurdistan.

In his public statements after the meeting, al-Sharaa said that the parties discussed ways to expand cooperation “for the sake of stability”, and Barzani called for the creation of a Syria where “the rights of all ethnic and religious communities will be protected”.

Nechirwan Barzani is the cousin of Massoud Barzani, a prominent politician who seeks to protect Syrian Kurds from attacks by Arab tribes in eastern Syria. Erbil played an equally important role in helping the United States broker a cease-fire between Damascus and the commander-in-chief of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) Mazloum Abdi (Kobani) in January, after weeks of intense fighting in which the Syrian Kurds lost more than 80 percent of the territory they controlled in Rojava.

The January 29 ceasefire agreement was supplemented by a document revising the terms of the March 10 integration agreement that al-Sharaa and Abdi signed last year. Under its terms, the Syrian Democratic Forces, the SDF, and the Kurdish Autonomous Administration must be disbanded by the end of the year, along with their integration into the new “post-Assad” Syrian government structure. On August 4, Ahmed al-Sharaa and Mazlum Abdi discussed this issue in Damascus. A Syrian Kurdish source told The National that Abdi understands the need to dissolve the SDF in the future, but would not agree to it unless militia commanders remain in the armed forces and the police force in northeastern Syria includes a large number of Kurds. “Damascus seems to want to cede some control over the police. But the main disagreements are about the position (status) of the SDU in the army. Ash-Sharaa wants to disband his fighters, Abdi doesn’t.” According to Kurdish media, Abdi was also supposed to meet with Barzani, but their meeting was apparently not planned later.One way or another, the scenery changes. The recent leader of “Al-Qaeda” welcomes world leaders, while the leader of the Syrian Democratic Forces, which defeated the “Islamic State” about 10 years ago, has clearly lost its influence and lost foreign support.

In Damascus, by inviting Barzani, they sent a clear signal to the Kurds and the governments of Western countries about the intention to resolve the disputes constructively. Most likely, al-Shara’a approves of the Kurdistan Regional Government’s role in Kurdish politics in Syria. The declining SDF is opposed by a coalition of parties called the Kurdistan National Council, which also includes the local Kurdistan Democratic Party, which is affiliated with the Iraqi party of the same name, traditionally led by members of the Barzani clan. Parliamentary elections were recently held in northeastern Syria that were ignored by SDF supporters in what critics say was a clear mistake.

In addition to Presidential Decree No. 13, which recognized the Syrian Kurds and promised to protect their cultural and linguistic rights, a number of steps were taken to integrate the SDF structures into the Syrian state. Those steps include the formation and training of several brigades staffed by the Syrian Democratic Forces, the inclusion of civilian employees on ministry rolls, and the recognition of high school diplomas and university diplomas issued by Rojava’s former administration. Damascus has also started the process of naturalization of stateless Syrian Kurds.

“However, in places, areas controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces are largely not integrated into the overall system as before, and (Kurdish) institutions continue to manage daily life,” said one observer. The question is, how long will it last? For now, the Damascus authorities’ refusal to recognize teaching in the Kurdish language as an inalienable right and to integrate female Kurdish fighters into the “new” Syrian army remain obstacles. The highest-ranking Kurd in the government so far is Sipan Khemo, the former head of the People’s Self-Defense Forces, who has held the eastern post of defense minister since March. the post of regional deputy.

The integration process in Syria is closely linked to Turkey’s negotiations with Öcalan and the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party in Turkey.: In May 2025, the rebels stationed in the Qandil mountains in the north of Iraq announced the cessation of the armed struggle against the Turkish state after the appeal of Abdullah Ocalan.

Barzani, who maintains close personal ties with Turkish President Recep Erdogan, called on Kobani to speed up the dissolution of the SCHR because the peace process in Turkey cannot continue without clear guarantees. After months of wrangling, there appears to be a breakthrough, and a bill on the peace process is expected to be tabled in Turkey’s Grand National Assembly before it goes into recess.

The law reportedly provides amnesty for PKK fighters who have not committed serious crimes against the state, as well as the creation of a body made up of representatives from the Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Defense, judiciary and Turkish intelligence to oversee the disarmament and repatriation of disarmed KKK fighters.

In a speech released by the People’s Democratic Party last week, Ocalan said that while the law is imperfect, it is a “key” that will “open the door” to future democratic reforms. It can be said that the prisoner of Imral Island follows the logic of the peace process, the course and sequence of which is determined by the Erdogan government, which is interested in supporting the Kurdish population on the eve of the next election cycle, which may not be excluded.

ALEXANDER GRIGOREV

Translation by Zhanna Avetisyan

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In the regular edition of the Two Fronts podcast, Edgar Ghazaryan and Davit Sargsyan discuss the new and fiercest wave of the regime’s struggle against the Armenian Apostolic Church and the Armenian patriarch, namely, summoning His Holiness and six bishops to court as defendants, the hostile drive to remove His Holiness, etc.

Details in the video

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