April 2, 2026
Satik Seyranyan’s guest in the “Pressing” program is religious scholar, sociologist and philosopher Vardan Khachatryan.
The main theses of the interview are below.
- When one of the greatest preachers I know, who did a great work in Africa, came to Armenia, he asked me to take him to Etchmiadzin. The Cathedral was not yet renovated. He himself entered, looked at the dark walls and raised his hands, which is not characteristic of Protestants… He surrendered to the sacred, sacred identity of the Armenian people…
- It is not possible to act in the sphere of the spiritual with push and fists, under no circumstances, because it will cause a crack, which cannot and cannot be filled in any way. Spiritual unity cannot be broken. No choice should have anything to do with a singular moment that holds eternity within it. What happened inside the Saint Anna church was an unacceptable process… The church is the cradle, the tabernacle of light, from which the Armenian Christian crowd is fed.
- You can be a participant in the liturgy, a communicator from the last rows, why do you break through the crowd and go to the first rows… There are no high and low people in the world religion, there are believers. It was an excess. It doesn’t matter where you stand during Mass…
- Only the Mormon choir sings the canonical version of the American national anthem. 1/3 of the population of the USA is in the Mormon sphere, they have a significant weight.
- The mechanism of violence works to ensure the reproduction of power as much as possible. There is a prosecutor’s office, a thousand and one institutions that ensure the institutional protection of the government, but it cannot be abused.
- It is impossible to find such a people, such a center of gravity, as the Armenians have on the face of the earth.
- Where there is money and power, there is vice, but one cannot look for vice in a power that has internal wealth. these are the words of Confucius.
- Sitting next to Putin with his imagined map of Armenia on his chest meant that Armenia will maintain the foreign policy line it has followed until now. It wasn’t for Putin, it was a photo shoot in front of the cameras, a symbol that will later be able to play during the election campaign.:
- We tried to sign the European Association Agreement (CEPA), and one of the key points in it, for example, was that Armenia would be given a privilege to import light industrial products to Europe, which happened in the case of Georgia. At least I haven’t seen any country that signed up to the euro association that didn’t end badly. What happened to Georgia… Nothing, they said, the level of Georgian wines does not correspond to the level of European wines. That’s it. Georgians lost the huge Russian market, gained nothing in the European market. The French company “Pernod Ricard” bought the Georgian winery, which sold in pennies, because he considered that if the Russian market does not exist, they do not claim any results. Now let’s think about what can replace the Russian market in our case.
- Europe is not the Europe of today, which can do everything and digest. A mega war against Iran has taken place today, and it is not yet known how it will end. America is ready to sacrifice the last American to win that war, just like Europe, the former Prime Minister of Great Britain, Boris Johnson, declared that it was necessary to sacrifice the last Ukrainian to win against the Russians.
- Yesterday’s meeting between Pashinyan and Putin was perhaps the toughest. that was what yesterday’s leitmotif suggested.
- Europe understands that its relationship with the US is in jeopardy. In this case, Europe can have ambitions of future rise only through China, and this can happen only over Azerbaijan, based on which we have to consider our possible steps. Is this compatible with our interests?
- I don’t understand, brother, how Turkey became our friend… every thought of that country is only to slaughter more Armenians.
- Didn’t the Armenian people see the fortune of Syria? If we must learn wisdom and experience only from our own mistakes, we will perish:
- According to Pashinyan, what is Europe and where does he want to go? Is there any analytical document, is there an analysis that, for example, the structure of the economy of Germany, France or Austria is such that we can have a presence there?
- The 42 km that we have given, TRIPP, will we be able to control in any way, check what they are carrying: weapons or something else? Once you try, the site will become an open road against our interests, which will not be stopped in any way. It’s another thing if all the roads are unblocked. Whatever economic benefit there may be, it will not be 1/100th of the benefits brought by the Russian market. Yesterday, Putin told Pashinyan: think, if you want to leave your interests and get problems, you are free in your choice…
- Europe is dependent, it even freed its automobile industry, European cars are produced in the USA and China:
- Either we will take small steps forward, or we will take large steps in the most dangerous direction for us. The emerging new world will not have the outcomes we imagine.
- The scenario of Moldova was possible at that time. Yesterday, Putin hinted that the Moldovan scenario would not work. Make a fair election, the results will be recognized by all, but if there will be an artificial mosaic, you will have problems in the emerging world.
- Folks, a multi-polar world means wars will continue, and we won’t avoid it, no matter how much we want to. If we cannot prepare for war, the anti-Armenian policy of Azerbaijan and Turkey will not change:
- Putin did not say that Russian citizens should come and run in the elections, but this does not mean that the forces that have a Russian orientation should be persecuted in Armenia.:
- Today, two powers, two poles have been created: incredibly rising China, which cannot be impoverished because it has Russia as an ally, and Iran, which is a unique translator of the Eurasian continent. We will face the dangers of the emerging world, and there will be no questioning. We don’t need to stand out at this moment by immediate decisions: we belong to this or that army. We have always distinguished ourselves as a nation of the third bell. You don’t have to forget that.
- If you can fit into the newly formed China-Russia-Iran axis, you will have achievements that you never dreamed of. Overchuk was saying that, will you be in the core of those interests, will you have more, won’t you, will you have losses? Today’s world cannot imagine otherwise. Everyone will act in the focus of their interests.
- If after what happened to us, we have to believe that the Turkic-speaking peoples will serve the Armenian interests, then long live the Turks. You don’t have to commit suicide. If you gouge out your eyes with your own fingers, do not complain that you are blind:
- It is the delusion of a drunkard. what does it mean: you will come, fight for us, give us money too?
- The rating of the Armenian Apostolic Church is more than 80%. Does any other institution or individual claim more, have a higher reputation?
- Did that person want to breed crocodiles? But didn’t they know that crocodile meat causes infertility in men?
- Today, the world is divided into parts, and it is as a result of united action that the United States did not succeed in Iran. There will no longer be a hegemonic state in the world. There is no longer that possibility. Why does Iran say that oil should be sold in yuan? it’s not Iran saying it, China is saying it. The new world will have nothing to do with the replica of the previous world:
- Iran cannot settle for anything other than a peace document guaranteeing an undisputed peace that reflects Iran’s vital interests. Russia does the same in the case of Ukraine. This is the result of a unified approach. Iran cannot allow them to leave now and come again in 6 months.
- Let’s not forget that when Nazarbayev left Kazakhstan, he went to Turkey. Let’s also not forget that when Nikol Pashinyan was the chairman of the CSTO, and the attempted uprising in Kazakhstan was suppressed, Erdogan announced that the bony hands of Armenians and Russians came to seize and strangle the diamond of Turkic-speaking peoples, Kazakhstan. The Turkic world is an emerging phenomenon that will blast Russia from the south, isolate China from the railways and conventional roads it has built. Should we become a satellite of these hostile actions?:
- We will always be faced with a dilemma, and let that not scare anyone, if you are knowledgeable, understand trends and trends, you will not go wrong. And if there is no strategy, where are you going…
Details in the video.
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Civil Contract Party names Pashinyan as prime ministerial candidate for June 7
Civil Contract party members have officially chosen Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan as the party’s candidate for prime minister in the upcoming election.
Pashinyan said in a statement on social media that his Civil Contract party held two rounds of internal voting, and the results have been finalized. He added that no appeals against the voting results were submitted within the defined timeframe.
“I would like to thank all members of the Counting Committee, led by its chairman, Hakob Arshakyan, for organizing both rounds of the secret ballot at a high level and in an essentially flawless manner. I thank all my fellow party members for once again expressing their confidence in me and for granting me the honor of leading the Civil Contract party’s electoral list and being its candidate for prime minister. I thank the Civil Contract Board for remaining faithful to the party’s political traditions and for setting a new political standard in the Republic of Armenia. I love you all,” Pashinyan said.
Parliamentary elections are scheduled to take place on June 7.
The ruling Civil Contract party determined its list of candidates through a two-round internal election process.
Published by Armenpress, original at
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Nikol Pashinyan: “If we turn the wheel of return, the ‘big piece will remain
According to Nikol Pashinyan, when a person says that he/she is “from Van,” it should not be viewed as a patriotic stance, but rather as a reflection of imperial patriotism.
“I will not hesitate to say that this is a manifestation of Stalinist patriotism,” Pashinyan said during today’s government session.
He also rejected claims that Armenia enjoyed peace prior to 2020.
“We had a frozen conflict, a postponement of war at the expense of our sovereignty, independence, freedom, and development,” Pashinyan noted.
According to him, the government has now brought Armenia “to a harbor of peace,” and society must adapt to this reality. He stressed that calming down means settling in, restoring order, and transitioning to a stable, long-term mode of living.
“That is, to switch to a permanent residence regime. Otherwise, if we turn the wheel of return in our region, the ‘big piece will remain the ear,’ and we know who will suffer the most,” Pashinyan declared.
He added that the present moment marks a significant historical achievement, which he plans to address in more detail in a month.
“This must not be sacrificed to the interests of superpowers,” Pashinyan concluded.
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Calm down, weak boy, you have no rival in squirming. By Robert Kocharian
The president said something obvious: oddities on social networks always get a lot of views, without connecting it to any person. But Pashinyan accepted it painfully for some reason.
Take it easy, weak boy, you have no rival in squirming.
It’s spring, exacerbations can be expressed in shouting, breaking dishes, tearing clothes, screaming and other ways.
This will continue until the morning of June 8th, when the postman will deliver the ward to the asylum.
Office of the second president of RA, Robert Kocharyan
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Armenian Government Refuses To Disclose Bonuses For Senior Officials
The Armenian government has declined to disclose the amounts of bonuses that Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian, his deputy, and cabinet ministers will receive based on the evaluation of their work during the second half of last year.
In response to a written request from RFE/RL’s Armenian Service, the government said on March 24 it cannot provide information on the payments to the mentioned senior officials, citing restrictions under the country’s freedom of information and personal data laws, as well as the labor code.
Meanwhile, only several months ago, the government provided the Hetq online magazine with information on the amount of the prime minister’s bonus for the first half of 2025, which was about 12 million drams (approximately $31,500).
The government referred RFE/RL’s Armenian Service to a decision issued several weeks ago, which only specifies the total bonus funds to be allocated across government departments. According to that decision, more than 4.6 billion drams (about $12.1 million) will be distributed to state employees by the middle of the year. Officials in the executive branch have not yet received their bonuses.
Hefty bonuses for government officials have been criticized by opposition figures and civic activists, who claim the payments constitute a form of political corruption.
Critics have also argued that awarding cash to political allies and public sector employees is intended to secure their loyalty ahead of parliamentary elections scheduled for June.
Prime Minister Pashinian and other officials have rejected these accusations, defending the bonuses. In January, Pashinian told reporters that the extra pay helps prevent corruption among senior officials.
“Armenia’s investment environment is changing significantly, and large-scale investments will soon flow into Armenia. There will be a lot of competition to implement investment projects in Armenia, and our assessment in this regard is that corruption risks could rise significantly, so we need to protect state officials against corruption risks,” he said.
Pashinian also argued that the bonuses are needed to retain skilled professionals within the government, preventing them from moving to the private sector.
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Pashinyan, Putin hold phone call on bilateral agenda
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Russian President Vladimir Putin held a telephone conversation. During the call they discussed a range of issues related to their bilateral agenda, the PM’s office said in a readout.
The two leaders agreed to continue discussions in person at a mutually convenient time.
Published by Armenpress, original at
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The deputy accused the RA leadership of inaction regarding the prisoners of Baku
After the politically motivated and unprecedentedly cruel judgments of the Armenian prisoners in the Azerbaijani courts, the attention of the international community and the press towards their fate has decreased catastrophically. The closure of the office of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Baku finally completed the circle of information blockade, leaving dozens of people alone against the punitive system of the neighboring state.
As noted by the secretary of the “I have an honor” faction of the National Assembly Tigran Abrahamyan, previously the information vacuum was not so absolute. Although the Azerbaijani media presented the events in a highly distorted and selective manner, the photos, videos and rare speech fragments of the prisoners of war they published at least conveyed some information about their physical condition. Now that the representatives of the Red Cross have left the capital of Azerbaijan, the isolation of the detained persons has become total.
According to Abrahamyan, the Armenian authorities are not taking any real steps to break this information blockade, because the political agenda and priorities of the ruling power are in a completely different dimension. The politician ends his speech with a strong and unequivocal call for the immediate release of all Armenians suffering in Baku prisons.
The scale of the humanitarian tragedy is highlighted by the latest data from the Baku courtroom. As of today, the Azerbaijani authorities officially confirm the fact of holding only 19 Armenians, while, according to human rights organizations, around 80 people are still in captivity. In February 2026, the fabricated trials against the former military-political leadership of Artsakh ended in Azerbaijan.
They were sentenced to life imprisonment Araik Harutyunyan, Levon Mnatsakanyan, Davit Babayan, Davit Ishkhanyan and: David Manukyan. Due to the age restrictions of the Azerbaijani legislation (which does not allow to assign a life term to persons who have reached the age of 65), former presidents Arkady Ghukasyan and Bako Sahakyan, as well as former state minister Ruben Vardanyan were sentenced to 20 years in prison. A number of other prisoners of war also received no less severe punishments, being sentenced to 15 to 19 years of imprisonment in strict regime colonies.
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The Yerevan Press building will turn into a premium class complex
Yerevan’s famous Press building is expected to undergo a large-scale reconstruction. RA State Property Management Committee and “PROSPECT24” company have announced an exclusive project to transform the structure of historical and cultural value into a modern premium multi-functional complex, promising to preserve its architectural originality.
The concept of large-scale renewal will be officially presented within the framework of the large real estate exhibition “House Expo”. As the organizers of the event inform, the project implies not only comprehensive modernization of the building, but also a complete change of its purpose. A premium class modern center will appear in the place of the former editorial offices, moreover, the authors of the initiative assure that special attention will be paid to the recognition of the structure and the undisturbed preservation of the historical and cultural value.
Ahead of the expected reconstruction, the state agency is inviting potential investors to cooperate. Companies interested in the hotel business and large-scale construction projects will have the opportunity to familiarize themselves with the renovation concept and evaluate the investment potential of the object at the booth of the State Property Management Committee located at the exhibition.
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Alarm horns will be tested in the province. Rescue service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs
On March 20, at 12:00 p.m., a practical exercise on the topic “Notification, evacuation and shelter” is planned in the Lchap settlement of Gavar community of Gegharkunik marz.
An electric horn will be activated during the event from 13:00 to 14:00.
The rescue service urges residents not to worry and not to panic.
Rescue service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs
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Who are you to call the Catholicos that? Is Nicole the law? Zhanna Aleksanyan
March: 20, 2026
“Ktrich Nersisyan’s brother was an agent of the KGB of the Soviet Union, and the National Security Service made that fact public,” he told journalists briefly today. responded Director of NSS Andranik Simonyan.
Journalists were not surprised by the statement about the leaked information, but by the address of the director of the NSS to His Holiness. to the question, how does the director of the NSS, who is not a politician, use the “Ktrich Nersisyan formulation” when talking about Vehapar, he responded: “As I used.”
168 around this short Q&A․am listened to the assessment of human rights defender Zhanna Aleksanyan.
Zhanna Aleksanyan responded to the observation that today in the National Assembly the young director of the NSS addressed the Catholicos of All Armenians in the name of the basin, and to the question: why in the state, in fact, there is no necessary division, for example, between the position of a politician and a non-political structure, the director of the NSS: “I think that Nikol Pashinyan is forcing them to say ‘Ktrich Nersisyan’, but if he doesn’t even force it, and they go to it voluntarily, then what should I think about the head of the NSS?”
Who are you to call the Catholicos that, what do you represent, who are you, by what right? Only Nikol is the law. Nicole is the law. In other words, that’s how I see this readiness for any illegality.
The head of the NSS has 0 importance for me, if he addresses the Catholicos like that, he has 0 value. And that atmosphere is clearly created by Nikol Pashinyan and he is very happy that he has such subjects who tirelessly serve and repeat any of his illegal manifestations.”
By the way, the document was made public, as Andranik Simonyan noted, through a leak on the KP website, civic.am. at the end of 2025, the website of the ruling power published a document received from the National Security Service, claiming that Archbishop Ezras Nersisyan, the brother of the Catholicos of All Armenians, was recruited by the Soviet KGB in the 80s.
In any case, Mikayel Hambardzumyan, who held the position of former director of the National Security Service under Nikol Pashinyan, drew attention to the fact that the declassified document did not have the signature of Ezras or any data proving that fact.
“Judging by the document, I cannot say that this document really proves that Ezras Srbazan or anyone else about whom such a document may have been drawn up, that this person cooperated with the special services, had a code name, etc., because I repeat, I did not see the signature of that person there. Such a document can be drawn up on anyone,” he said in a conversation with one of the media.
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