April 4, 2026
“We need a change of government, we are not interested in the prospect of having several mandates. The past years further prove the truth of this decision.
And I assure you and our people that even without participating, or more precisely, without directly participating in these elections, the Republican Party will continue to be one of the pioneers of the struggle in the focus of political developments,” Serzh Sargsyan, the third president of the Republic of Armenia, announced at the RPA congress.
“We announce that the activities of the Republican Party from this congress until June 7 will be aimed at promoting the participation of our compatriots in the national elections, under the slogan “Let them go”, with various actions, propaganda, information campaigns, meetings with residents.
We will use every opportunity to convince our citizens to go to the polling stations and choose such forces that will put an end to today’s humiliation of Armenia, put an end to this conspiratorial, disastrous regime,” Serzh Sargsyan announced.
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Solar strategy. Armenia will refuse to import energy
The Armenian government has announced a radical revision of the state approach to the energy sector. Putting a strategic emphasis on the large-scale adoption of solar energy, the republic plans to completely abandon the purchase of electricity from abroad and achieve absolute self-sufficiency.
Prime Minister during the government session on April 2 Nikol Pashinyan emphasized the need to rethink the entrenched stereotype of Armenia as a country lacking its own natural resources.
According to him, the geographical location provides the state with an inexhaustible source – the sun, whose competent use is able to fully cover the internal needs of the country.
The head of the government noted that the transition to the new concept was initially accompanied by serious skepticism of specialists in the field. Experts referred to theoretical calculations, trying to justify the futility of such initiatives.
However, as the prime minister emphasized, thanks to the demonstrated political will, the leadership managed to overcome the resistance and launch such renewable energy capacities, the total volume of which is comparable to the two Metsamor nuclear power plants.
At the current stage, the key priority of infrastructure development is the introduction of modern energy storage and storage technologies. Pashinyan drew attention to global global trends, noting that the conventional energy system will change by at least seventy percent in the next three to four decades.
In order to successfully adapt to the upcoming transformations, Armenia intends to promote the production of ecologically clean “green” hydrogen, as well as launch systematic training programs for branch personnel.
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Listen to “Regarding the current state of state-national church relations”.
At the initiative of the “I have honor” faction of the RA NA, on April 2, parliamentary hearings were held, the topic of which was the draft statement of the RA National Assembly “Regarding the current state of state-national church relations”. Deputies and interested citizens participated in the hearings.
Before going to the speeches, the participants of the hearings honored the memory of the victims of the April four-day war with a minute of silence and standing.
Speaking, the head of the faction, Hayk Mamijanyan, said that they received a letter from the Armenian Apostolic Holy Church informing them that the invited clergyman could not participate in the hearing due to the ritual ceremonies of Maundy Thursday.
Hayk Mamijanyan also informed that the discussion of the statement draft in the NA Standing Committee on State-Legal Affairs was postponed for up to two months, so that as a result of the hearings, an updated version would be presented to the committee for consideration.
The purpose of the draft statement authored by the NA faction “I have honor” is to respond to the situation formed in the public and legal field recently, which refers to the constitutional foundations of relations between state and religious organizations and the practical problems of their application.
Draft statement here.
Tigran Abrahamyan, secretary of the “I have an honor” faction, spoke about the crisis created in the relations between the state and the church, in his opinion. According to the draft of the statement, many phenomena have appeared recently that raise serious questions about the borders of the state and national relations. According to Tigran Abrahamyan, the draft statement offers concrete practical solutions in this respect. The first of them is legal transparency, that is, law enforcement and investigative bodies must have clear public standards on how they will take into account freedom of conscience and religion in their actions. The second is the circumstance of international legal advice. It is recommended to contact the Venice Commission to get a professional opinion on the limits of state intervention in the internal management of religious organizations and to what extent the courts and other bodies should be guided in such disputes. Among the next steps proposed by the project are the depoliticization of justice, the active role of the Human Rights Defender.
At the end of the speech, the secretary of the faction noted that the purpose of the hearing is to voice a clear principle: the state is obliged to respect the autonomy of religious organizations.
Davit Harutyunyan, Deputy Chairman of RPA, Executive Director of “Luys” Foundation, Davit Harutyunyan highlighted the delimitation of the state and the church, which includes the principle of non-interference, the guarantees of freedom of conscience and religion, as well as the autonomy of religious communities.
The participants of the parliamentary hearings in their speeches considered the discussed topic to be topical and urgent. Reference was made to the national security strategy, state-church relations, rule of law, protection of human rights, as well as freedom of thought, conscience and religion.
In the final speech, Davit Harutyunyan informed that many of the participants presented suggestions regarding the announcement.
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Iran’s foreign minister calls on Saudis to ‘eject’ U.S. forces
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on Monday called on the Saudi Arabian government to “eject” U.S. troops from its territory. His comments come days after the Iranian military attacked a U.S. air base in Saudi Arabia.
“Iran respects the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and considers it a brotherly nation. Our operations are aimed at enemy aggressors who have no respect for Arabs or Iranians, nor can provide any security. Just look at what we did to their aerial command. High time to eject U.S. forces,” Araghchi said on X, posting a photo of a damaged U.S. Boeing E-3 Sentry aircraft following an Iranian strike at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia.
Last week, an Iranian missile attack on Prince Sultan Air Base in Al-Kharj, Saudi Arabia, injured 12 U.S. service members, according to The Wall Street Journal. The paper reported that two service members suffered significant injuries, while 10 were concussed.
The attack also damaged multiple U.S. refueling aircraft, and several unmanned aerial vehicles were hit. The destruction of the Boeing-made E-3 Sentry, which costs roughly $300 million, marks the first time such an aircraft has been destroyed in combat. The BBC published verified pictures showing the US command and control aircraft destroyed.
The U.S. and Israel launched what they described as a pre-emptive strike against Iran on February 28, claiming that Tehran was developing a nuclear weapon and posed a threat—an allegation Iran has denied. In response, Iran launched counterattacks, firing missiles and drones at Israel, as well as at U.S. assets and other targets across the Middle East.
Published by Armenpress, original at
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Pashinyan to meet Putin in Moscow
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan will visit Russia on April 1, his office has announced. During the visit, the Armenian prime minister will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow.
Published by Armenpress, original at
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168: “Spoofing exes” as a political shield no longer works
March: 29, 2026
Why is the government trying to scare again with the old ones?
As the elections are approaching, the rumors about the looting of the former have been activated again. At one time, they came to power by exploiting the loot of their predecessors. They want to deceive the people this time too. They forgot that the times when they said whatever they wanted and the people accepted it instead of melted oil, have long passed.
For 8 years, they have been playing the same disc about the looting of the former, but the looting is not coming back. Instead, their loot comes to the surface. They have been busy looting the budget for eight years. The former would even dream of emptying the budget in such professional ways. After that, they hope that people will believe in the fairy tales woven by the former about the looting. Especially since they don’t see the return of that loot, and even more so, they don’t feel the result.
Meanwhile, at one time Nikol Pashinyan invented so many lies about the astronomical loot of his predecessors that people believed him and after bringing him to power, they hoped that he would return the loot of his predecessors and divide them. In eight years, not only did they not get a share of the loot, but they also did not see where the return of the loot was.
They have been talking about some billions for years, but the returned amounts are small.
In five years, the Department of Illegal Property Confiscation of the General Prosecutor’s Office brought back property and money equivalent to only 14.5 million dollars within the framework of illegal property confiscations.
Summarizing the works of the Department for the period of 2020-2025, we should note that within the framework of the authority to confiscate property of illegal origin, with 1 legally effective judgment and 9 reconciliation agreements, 9 immovable properties with an average market value of 4 billion 411 million 112 thousand 500 drams, 2 movable properties with an average market value of 26 million have been confiscated in favor of the Republic of Armenia. 100 thousand drams and 1 billion 13 million 281 thousand drams.
Thus, only within the framework of the Prosecutor’s Office’s authority to confiscate property of illegal origin, 5 billion 450 million 494 thousand 148 drams worth of property and money, which is equivalent to about 14 million 464 thousand US dollars, were confiscated in favor of the Republic of Armenia,” the General Prosecutor’s Office recorded in the expanded session of the panel held in early March.
This is all. And since the return of property of illegal origin, outside of the propaganda bubble, they failed, which is what their published data speaks of, they decided to save the situation in another way, they went back to 2018.
But that was not salvation either. It was another manipulation by which they tried to deceive the citizens.
“Indicators of properties and funds returned to the ownership or possession of the Republic of Armenia and communities in 2018-2025 through criminal proceedings, cases completed in courts, claims and settlements for the protection of state and community interests, prosecutorial intervention measures, and also from 2023, as a result of the use of the tools for the confiscation of property of illegal origin, were analyzed in the prosecutor’s office.
According to these indicators, during the years 2018-2025, around 291 billion 726 million drams (about 773 million dollars) of property and money were returned to the ownership or possession of the Republic of Armenia and its communities, of which 65.8 percent or about 193 billion drams (about 504 million dollars) of property and money were returned to the ownership or possession of the Republic of Armenia in 2023-2025. in order to dispel the sad moods, a few days later they published such a statement.
Against the background of regularly circulating announcements about the widespread and astronomical “loot”, the return of 773 million in 8 years, admit it, is a small amount. Especially, most of it is property, which they calculated in drams using their known methods and got such a number.
But that’s not the whole joke. What is being said about the recovery of the damage done to the state and communities has always happened. Even before the Communists came to power, damages amounting to billions of drams were being repaired annually. Do not create the impression that this is the case only now.
It is a process that is part of the work of the prosecutor’s office, and nothing unusual happened in this regard. The restoration of property and monetary damages of 773 million dollars is a common phenomenon. It is only about restoring the damage caused to the state as a result of law violations. Another thing is that now they only see the “illegalities and looting” of the former, they don’t see their own or they don’t want to see it.
They don’t see it, they think that the people don’t see it either.
They rob the state budget day in and day out. They decide that they will be given 20-25 thousand and sometimes up to 30 thousand dollars in bonuses at the expense of the budget.
Only with additional bonuses or incentives, more than 21 million dollars were distributed to government officials within 3 months. Individual officials received amounts up to 45-50 thousand dollars in 2 rounds during those 3 months.
This is not looting of state funds, what is it, whatever name they call it? It makes no difference how public funds are looted.
The calculation of the gratuity distributed under today’s rulers has long since been lost. But we are definitely talking about hundreds of millions of dollars.
They have created laws convenient for them in order to rob state funds.
They are talking about the looting of the former. In 8 years, almost 1.2 billion dollars were withdrawn from the state budget to solve the issues of their apartments. Instead of one, sometimes they bought several apartments at the expense of the state.
Isn’t it looting when the funds of the state budget are squandered left and right, and no one, including the law enforcement agencies, tries to get their hands on it? We are talking about misuse and waste of billions. They don’t see their looting, before the elections they have started playing the disc about the looting of the previous ones, which has been repeated a thousand times, and they are trying to frighten them with the return of the former “looters”. They do not understand that they can no longer deceive the people with this. They have long passed the previous ones, and if the people have reason to be wary, they should be wary of them first of all.
HAKOB KOCHARYAN
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Prompt release of Armenians held in Azerbaijan would further strengthen peace,
Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan said on Monday that the swift release of the remaining Armenians held in Azerbaijan would further strengthen the recently established peace between the two countries.
“The position regarding the persons held in Azerbaijan, the prisoners of war, remains the same. I prefer not to speak loudly and publicly about this issue, but rather to work on it. When there is a result, the public is informed. We welcome the recent release of four prisoners and are confident that the prompt release of all remaining detained persons will further strengthen the peace established between Armenia and Azerbaijan. We are working in this direction, and we are also discussing this issue with Azerbaijan and, first and foremost, with Azerbaijan’s partners. At this moment, there is no result. This is a matter where there either is a result or there is not. We are working, of course, and this issue cannot be removed from our agenda. When there is a result, you will know,” the Armenian foreign minister said.
Four Armenians were released by Azerbaijan earlier in January, bringing the number of remaining captives to 19.
Earlier in February, an Azerbaijani military court sentenced several former top political and military leaders of Nagorno-Karabakh to life imprisonment on war crime–related charges widely seen as fabricated.
Former Nagorno-Karabakh President Arayik Harutyunyan; former Defense Army Commander Levon Mnatsakanyan and his deputy Davit Manukyan; former Foreign Minister Davit Babayan; former Speaker of Parliament Davit Ishkanyan; and former State Minister Ruben Vardanyan were sentenced to life imprisonment.
Former Presidents Bako Sahakyan and Arkady Ghukasyan received 20-year prison sentences, as they are over the age of 65 and Azerbaijani law prohibits life imprisonment for individuals of that age.
They are all among the 19 Armenian captives.
Other captives received sentences ranging from 15 to 19 years.
After Azerbaijan’s takeover of Nagorno-Karabakh during its 2023 offensive, the Armenian population—over 100,000 people—fled to Armenia seeking refuge. The former politicians and others were detained during the exodus.
Published by Armenpress, original at
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President Khachaturyan meets Georgian counterpart during visit for Patriarch’s
Armenian President Vahagn Khachaturyan met with his Georgian counterpart, Mikheil Kavelashvili, during his visit to the neighboring country to attend the funeral of Ilia II, the Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia, who passed away last week at the age of 93, the President’s Office said in a press release.
President Khachaturyan expressed his condolences on the passing of the Catholicos-Patriarch.
President Kavelashvili thanked the Armenian President for his visit and for attending the funeral of the Georgian patriarch.
During the meeting, the presidents also discussed the agenda of bilateral relations and regional developments, according to the President’s Office.
Published by Armenpress, original at
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Armenian President arrives in Tbilisi for Ilia II funeral
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RFE/RL – Pashinian Warns Of ‘Imminent’ War If Opposition Wins June Elections
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian warned on Thursday that Armenia will face imminent war if opposition forces come to power as a result of the country’s parliamentary elections on June 7.
Speaking at a press briefing in Yerevan following a weekly cabinet session, Pashinian accused his political opponents, without naming specific groups, of planning to revise the current peace with Azerbaijan if they win the vote.
“I want to say this very directly, without any pretense, that [if they do so] it will be a war with the loss of not only territory but also sovereignty of the Republic of Armenia,” he said.
Pashinian argued that some opposition figures campaigning ahead of the elections “probably don’t even understand what they are saying,” suggesting that their statements are influenced by external sources.
“All these forces are advocating a revision of peace, which means inevitable war very soon after the elections, in autumn the latest…. They are preparing a new September war with grave consequences,” he said.
The prime minister implicitly drew parallels with the 2020 and 2023 wars in Nagorno-Karabakh, as well as deadly clashes along the Armenian-Azerbaijani border in 2022, all of which took place in September. Those hostilities in Nagorno-Karabakh resulted in the defeat of Armenian forces by Azerbaijan, the subsequent loss of control over the region, and the exodus of its Armenian population. In 2022, Azerbaijan advanced into Armenia and, according to Yerevan, continues to occupy more than 200 square kilometers of sovereign Armenian territory.
Speaking of Azerbaijan’s military takeover of Nagorno-Karabakh in September 2023, Pashinian recalled that it followed a change of government in the region that was welcomed by Armenia’s opposition at the time.
“Everything ended for Karabakh within days. Now the same forces want to do the same with the Republic of Armenia as a result of parliamentary elections. There is no difference whatsoever in their intentions,” Pashinian said.
Pashinian stated that his ruling Civil Contract party will seek a constitutional majority in the elections in order to make “regional peace irreversible.”
In this context, he reiterated his position that Armenia should remove from its constitution a reference to the 1990 Declaration of Independence, which cites a 1989 act on the unification of Soviet Armenia and the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast. He said that the declaration is “not about independence, but about conflict,” arguing that its removal from the constitution is part of Armenia’s own agenda.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has repeatedly stated that Baku will not sign a peace treaty with Armenia, initialed last August, unless the reference is removed from Armenia’s constitution. Under Armenian law, such a change would require the adoption of a new constitution through a national referendum.
Opposition groups have criticized Pashinian’s stance, arguing that removing the reference to the Declaration of Independence from the constitution would amount to a unilateral concession to Azerbaijan and could lead to further demands without ensuring lasting peace.
They have also accused the prime minister of invoking the threat of war to bolster his political position, noting that Armenia has experienced several deadly conflicts during his time in office.
During the press briefing, Pashinian challenged his rivals, including Samvel Karapetian, the leader of the newly established Strong Armenia party, to go live on the internet and demonstrate his arguments publicly.
He appeared to gloat over the fact that, so far, Karapetian has been addressing his supporters through AI-generated videos.
Karapetian, a Russian-Armenian businessman, is currently under house arrest as part of an ongoing investigation into his remarks in support of the Armenian Apostolic Church that prosecutors have described as a “call for a violent overthrow of the government.” He rejects the accusations, as well as charges of tax evasion, fraud, and money laundering leveled against him, calling them politically motivated.
Pashinian said that Armenia’s Probation Service has officially confirmed that there are no restrictions preventing Karapetian from going live online.
“Let him go live online and say what he wants to say. When they bring up the issue of ‘strong’ and ‘weak,’ we need to understand what it is that makes them ‘strong’ and makes us ‘weak,’” the prime minister said, casting doubt on his critic’s ability to make a “coherent argument.”
“If these oligarchs can do 30 pull-ups, let them do it live on air. I can’t do 30 pull-ups, but I can ride a bicycle for 100 kilometers. What else are they good at? Intellect? Let them demonstrate their intellectual capacity and their vocabulary live on air,” Pashinian added.
Through its spokesperson, Karapetian’s Strong Armenia party responded to Pashinian’s remarks, attributing them to his “state of panic” and citing opinion polls that, the party claimed, show “he will leave office in two months.”
A spokeswoman for businessman Gagik Tsarukian, another likely contender in the upcoming elections, also dismissed Pashinian’s challenge, noting that “the former world arm-wrestling champion who keeps fit… won’t engage in competition with anyone.”
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