Armenia’s growing strategic importance is helping it move away from Russia’s grip and deepen its ties with the West

Adrian BlomfieldSenior Foreign Correspondent, Yerevan

What Emmanuel Macron lacked in talent, he made up for in enthusiasm.

As Armenia’s celebrated jazz pianist Vahagn Hayrapetyan struggled gamely to keep up with his offbeat tempo, the French president – eyebrows furrowed soulfully – warbled Charles Aznavour’s La Bohème into the microphone.

Mr Macron’s performance may have resembled Cacophonix, the tone-deaf bard from the Astérix comics, more than the “French Sinatra”, but if Nikol Pashinyan, Armenia’s prime minister, was grimacing inwardly as he accompanied his guest on the drums, he was not about to complain.

Seeking re-election next month after a campaign marred by alleged Russian interference, the pro-Western Mr Pashinyan was willing to endure musical pain for political gain.

The French president had come to Yerevan to offer more than karaoke diplomacy. Heading a delegation of European leaders, Mr Macron was staging a show of support for a prime minister determined to pull Armenia out of Moscow’s orbit and deepen ties with the West.

For Europe, the rewards could be considerable. As Russia’s war in Ukraine drains Moscow’s power and prestige, Western governments increasingly see the South Caucasus as a strategic trade, energy and critical-minerals corridor bypassing Russia and Iran.

Nor is it only Europe taking an interest. To Moscow’s growing alarm, Donald Trump has thrown his weight behind a proposed transport route – one that would inevitably bear his name – along Armenia’s southern border with Iran.

The so-called Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (Tripp) would provide the missing link connecting resource-rich Central Asia with Turkey and Europe, weakening Russia’s grip over east-west trade while boosting European access to energy and critical minerals.

The region’s growing strategic importance – heightened further by disruption from the Iran war – helps explain why 48 presidents and prime ministers, including Sir Keir Starmer, descended on Yerevan earlier this month for a three-day series of European summits that also gave Mr Pashinyan a timely political boost.

The jamboree highlighted how Armenia – long treated as a geopolitical backwater – now sits at the centre of a growing contest for influence.

Black limousines roared through Yerevan under police escort. Mark Carney, Canada’s prime minister, turned heads with an early-morning jog through the capital. But no leader campaigned harder for Armenian hearts than Mr Macron, who delivered speeches, sat on panels, gave press conferences and ultimately won over much of the public with his crooning.

For three decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia treated the South Caucasus as its backyard, with Armenia among its most loyal regional allies.

But the Ukraine war has weakened the foundations of Russian dominance across the former Soviet space. Many Armenians concluded the Kremlin had abandoned them when it failed to prevent Azerbaijan’s seizure of Nagorno-Karabakh, its former enclave, in 2023. Armenia has since become an unlikely front line in a growing geopolitical struggle between Russia and the West.

President of the Republic Nizar Amedi received a congratulatory message on Sunday from Armenian President Vahagn Khachaturyan.

The Presidency of the Republic Media office said in a statement received by INA that the message was delivered by Armenian Ambassador to Iraq, Ruben Soghoyan, on the occasion of Amedi assuming office as President of the Republic.

In his message, the Armenian president extended his sincere congratulations and best wishes for success in carrying out his national responsibilities, affirming Armenia’s commitment to strengthening bilateral relations with Iraq and expanding cooperation across various fields.

The Iraqi president, in turn, conveyed his greetings and appreciation to his Armenian counterpart, stressing the importance of developing bilateral ties in a way that serves the interests of both friendly peoples.

https://ina.iq/en/politics/48787-president-of-the-republic-receives-congratulatory-message-from-armenian-counterpart.html

May 28th marks Armenian Independence Day, the anniversary of the birth of the First Republic of Armenia in 1918.

By William Paparian

At its heart stands the Battle of Sardarabad, the decisive victory of May 1918, when a small, exhausted force of Armenian soldiers, volunteers, farmers, and refugees turned back an Ottoman army intent on completing the destruction begun during the Genocide. Without Sardarabad, there might have been no Armenia left to declare independence. As one historian warned, the word “Armenia” could have become merely “an antique geographical term.” Instead, on that battlefield near what is now Nor Armavir, our people chose life.

One hundred years after my grandfather, Nishan Paparian, left Kharpert in Ottoman-occupied Armenia and stepped onto Ellis Island in 1907, my wife, our three sons, and I made the pilgrimage home. It was Father’s Day 2007. Our youngest had just graduated from high school. We had spoken of this journey for years; now it was time to walk the soil our ancestors had been forced to leave.

On the road to Sardarabad, the dry Armenian plateau stretched beneath a brilliant blue sky, the air warm and fragrant with wild thyme and sunbaked earth. Tucked beside the highway in the village of Musaler stood a modest yet powerful monument to the defenders of Musa Dagh — a site absent from most guidebooks. In the summer of 1915, nearly 5,000 Armenians from six Cilician villages at the foot of Musa Dagh refused Ottoman deportation orders. They climbed the mountain, fortified a windswept plateau called Damlayik, and held out for fifty-three days against vastly superior forces. When supplies ran low, they raised giant banners visible from the sea: “Christians in Distress: Rescue!” French warships evacuated more than 4,000 survivors to safety in Egypt. Their stand was immortalized in Franz Werfel’s novel The Forty Days of Musa Dagh. Standing before the Musaler Memorial, the rough stone warm beneath our hands and the wind whispering through the grass, we felt the unbroken thread of defiance stretching from the salty breezes of Cilicia to the plains where we now stood.

From Musa Dagh’s story of desperate survival, we continued to Sardarabad, the place where defiance became victory. In late May 1918, roughly 9,000–10,000 Armenian fighters faced a larger Ottoman force advancing on Yerevan and Etchmiadzin. Under determined commanders, they launched fierce counterattacks. Church bells rang for days, calling peasants, women, and clergy to arms alongside soldiers. After eight days of fighting, the Ottoman advance was halted and pushed back.

As we climbed the broad stone steps toward the towering winged bulls, the rough granite cool beneath our palms and the midday sun warming our shoulders, the memorial bells suddenly began to ring. No ceremony was scheduled. Their deep, resonant peals rolled across the plain like thunder from the past, vibrating through our chests. Tears flowed freely. In that moment, the same bells that once summoned a people to battle seemed to welcome us home.

The museum at Sardarabad remains unmatched in our memory. In its cool interior, scented with aged wood and polished metal, our guide brought the exhibits to life, the weight of rifles carried by farmer-soldiers, grainy photographs of resolute faces, dioramas of the very fields outside. We left understanding that Sardarabad marked the moment Armenians passed from victims to victors, from refugees to republic-builders.

Later, we lit candles in Etchmiadzin’s ancient cathedral and walked the windswept ruins of Zvartnots. Yet it was the twin memorials — Musaler’s quiet fortress and Sardarabad’s soaring bells — that bound our journey together. One spoke of holding on when all seemed lost; the other proclaimed that a people could still rise and claim their future.

On May 28th, as we commemorate the Battle of Sardarabad and the independence it secured, I still carry the sound of those bells. They echo from Kharpert to Ellis Island, from the heights of Musa Dagh to the plains of Sardarabad, from the pain of the Genocide to the pride of nationhood.

They remind every generation that we are not merely inheritors of tragedy, but guardians of triumph, and that the fight begun on that plain in 1918 lives on in us, in our children, and in the sacred chain that binds past, present, and future.

May the bells of Sardarabad ring loud and long for all Armenian Americans. May they stir in us the courage that once saved a mountain, won a republic, and brought a diaspora family home. And may we, like those who came before us, choose life, fiercely, joyfully, and without end.

Happy Armenian Independence Day.
May 28, 2026

Fourteen years ago, a modest but deeply symbolic media bus tour traveled from Istanbul to Yerevan with a mission that many considered unrealistic at the time: encouraging dialogue between Turks and Armenians. Journalists from both countries crossed borders, shared meals, debated history and confronted deeply rooted prejudices that had shaped generations. What seemed like a small civil society initiative was, in reality, an experiment in reconciliation.

Today, many of the ideas discussed during that journey are slowly becoming reality.

The renewed momentum in relations between Turkiye and Armenia represents one of the most consequential geopolitical shifts in the South Caucasus in decades. The significance of this process extends far beyond bilateral diplomacy. It reflects a wider regional transformation driven by war, shifting alliances, economic necessity and the urgent search for stability in an increasingly volatile neighborhood.

Recent developments would have been almost unimaginable only a few years ago. Ankara has announced that bureaucratic preparations for direct trade with Armenia have been completed and that efforts to reopen the long-closed border are ongoing. The border has remained shut since 1993, when tensions surrounding the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict pushed relations into complete diplomatic freeze.

For Armenia, the closure created profound economic and geopolitical consequences. It deepened the country’s isolation and increased its dependence on both Russia and Iran. Today, however, both of those traditional regional pillars are facing their own crises. Russia remains heavily consumed by the war in Ukraine, while Iran is struggling under the pressure of escalating regional conflict and confrontation with Israel and the United States.

Under these conditions, Armenia’s strategic calculations are changing rapidly.

The reopening of the Turkish-Armenian border would not merely facilitate trade routes or transportation networks. It would fundamentally reshape Armenia’s economic geography and expand its diplomatic maneuverability. For Turkiye, normalization would strengthen its influence in the South Caucasus while advancing its long-standing goal of becoming a regional connectivity hub linking Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia.

More importantly, however, normalization is gradually becoming a human story rather than simply a geopolitical one.

One of the strongest recent symbols of this transformation came with the decision by Ankara and Yerevan to jointly restore the medieval Ani Bridge, which once connected the two peoples along the historic Silk Road. The bridge itself is not merely an architectural structure. It is a metaphor for the broader process underway.

For decades, Armenians and Turks could see one another across closed borders, burdened by history and separated by political mistrust. The restoration of the Ani Bridge symbolizes something larger than infrastructure: it symbolizes the rebuilding of confidence, communication and coexistence.

Turkish Vice President Cevdet Yilmaz visiting Yerevan this month further underscored the seriousness of the current process. It marked the highest-level Turkish visit to Armenia in nearly two decades. Such diplomatic gestures matter because they demonstrate that normalization is no longer confined to rhetoric or symbolic meetings between special envoys. It is now increasingly visible at the highest political levels.

Yet describing this process merely as “normalization” may not fully capture its meaning.

Turkiye’s special envoy, Serdar Kilic, has accurately characterized it as a “trust-building process.” That distinction is critical. Formal diplomatic normalization — embassies, open borders and trade agreements — cannot endure without deeper reconciliation between societies.

Political agreements alone are insufficient when collective memories remain wounded and mutual suspicion persists. Sustainable peace requires human interaction. It requires educational exchanges, cultural diplomacy, tourism, business partnerships and direct communication between ordinary citizens.

This is why the growing emphasis on soft power initiatives between the two countries is particularly significant.

The announcement of reciprocal scholarships for university students is one example. Educational diplomacy often produces results that formal political negotiations cannot achieve. Students who study, travel and interact with one another develop perspectives that transcend inherited national narratives. These exchanges can create long-term constituencies for peace.

Similarly, Turkish Airlines launching flights to Yerevan since March represents more than commercial connectivity. Direct flights reduce psychological distance. They normalize contact. They create familiarity where isolation once dominated.

The planned reopening of the Kars-Gyumri railway carries comparable strategic importance. The rail line has remained inactive for more than three decades, symbolizing the frozen state of regional politics. If restored, it could reconnect Armenia not only to Turkiye but also to broader regional trade corridors extending toward Europe and Asia.

Armenian officials increasingly recognize that their country risks remaining economically marginalized if regional connectivity projects continue without Armenian participation. Turkiye, Georgia and Azerbaijan are already linked through major transportation and energy corridors. Armenia’s inclusion in these networks could significantly alter its economic future.

The current rapprochement has also been strongly shaped by the efforts of nonstate actors.

For years, journalists, academics, businesspeople and civil society organizations have quietly maintained channels of communication even when official diplomatic ties did not exist. These Track II diplomacy efforts played an indispensable role in preventing complete societal disengagement between Turks and Armenians.

Such initiatives often receive less attention than formal diplomatic negotiations, yet they are frequently more effective in transforming public attitudes. Governments can sign agreements, but reconciliation ultimately depends on whether societies themselves are prepared to coexist peacefully.

The geopolitical environment has also dramatically accelerated the normalization process.

Three major regional developments have pushed Ankara and Yerevan closer together: the Russia-Ukraine war, escalating tensions involving Iran, and Armenia’s peace process with Azerbaijan.

First, the broader regional instability surrounding Iran has created a shared security concern for Turkiye, Armenia and Azerbaijan alike. All three states are attempting to avoid being pulled into wider regional conflict while simultaneously protecting their economic and security interests. This has encouraged unprecedented levels of diplomatic engagement and coordination.

Second, Armenia is gradually distancing itself from Russia.

For decades, Moscow positioned itself as Armenia’s primary security guarantor. However, Russia’s inability or unwillingness to decisively protect Armenian interests during the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict severely damaged its credibility inside Armenia. Simultaneously, Russia’s prolonged war in Ukraine has reduced its regional bandwidth and weakened its overall strategic influence.

As a result, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has increasingly pursued diversification in Armenia’s foreign policy. Engagement with Western institutions, closer ties with Europe and improved relations with neighboring states now form a central part of Yerevan’s strategic outlook.

Within this framework, improving relations with Turkiye carries enormous significance. Turkiye is not only a NATO member but also economically integrated with Europe through the EU Customs Union. For Armenia, normalization with Ankara potentially opens new economic opportunities and diplomatic channels previously unavailable.

The United States and the European Union have both strongly supported Turkish-Armenian rapprochement because they view regional stability in the South Caucasus as increasingly vital amid wider geopolitical fragmentation.

Third, Armenia’s peace agreement with Azerbaijan has fundamentally altered regional dynamics.

Pashinyan’s willingness to pursue peace with Baku and simultaneously engage Ankara demonstrates a major shift in Armenian strategic thinking. Unlike earlier Armenian leaders who often approached normalization cautiously due to domestic political constraints, Pashinyan has adopted a more pragmatic and economically driven approach.

The upcoming parliamentary elections in Armenia will therefore serve as an important referendum on this broader foreign policy transformation. The central question facing Armenian voters is whether economic connectivity and regional integration should take priority over the rigid geopolitical paradigms of the past.

Unlike previous attempts at reconciliation, the current process is not driven solely by optimism or goodwill. It is also being propelled by geopolitical necessity.

The South Caucasus today sits at the intersection of multiple crises: the Russia-Ukraine war, instability involving Iran, shifting global trade corridors and intensifying great power competition. Under such conditions, prolonged hostility between Turkiye and Armenia has become increasingly unsustainable for both sides.

Shared economic interests, common security concerns and the urgent need for regional stability are creating incentives for cooperation that did not previously exist.

The restoration of a bridge in Ani may appear symbolic, but symbols often matter greatly in international politics. Bridges represent movement, communication and connection. For decades, the relationship between Turks and Armenians was defined by walls, silence and closed borders.

Now, slowly but unmistakably, those barriers are beginning to crack.