Category: News

Voters casting ballots in Armenia’s Parliamentary Elections on Jun. 7

The European Union was quick to welcome the results of Sunday’s Parliamentary Elections in Armenia, with bloc leaders congratulating Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and pledging more support to Armenia. Russia, on the other hand, said that it would wait for the final official results before commenting on the vote.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday congratulated Pashinyan and touted the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity—TRIPP.

“Congratulations to Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on his party’s reelection,” Rubio said in post on X.

“The United States stands with Prime Minister Pashinyan and Armenia in the pursuit of peace, and we are committed to advancing the goals of the historic Washington Peace Summit, including implementation of the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP). We look forward to working together to deliver peace, stability, and prosperity to the South Caucasus and beyond,” he added.

EU leaders were joined by President Emmanuel Macron of France and other European leaders in welcoming Sunday’s vote, which saw Pashinyan’s Civil Contract party garner 49.9 percent of votes. The EU poured significant resources into the Armenian elections, which he said were being marred by threats from Russia.

“The people of Armenia have voted for a future built on peace, stability and stronger cooperation with their neighbors and the world,” EU Council President Antonio Costa said in a congratulatory message also posted on X.

“You can be proud of your role in strengthening Armenia’s resilience, stability and prosperity,” he wrote to Pashinian.

“We deeply value our partnership with a democratic Armenia that is drawing ever closer to Europe,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said for her part. “Armenia can count on us.”

Von der Leyen and Costa met with Pashinyan in Yerevan on May 5 for what was billed as the first EU-Armenia summit. It came the day after a European Political Community summit also held in the Armenian capital.

“My warmest congratulations, dear Nikol Pashinyan, on this resounding victory in the parliamentary elections,” Macron said in a post on X.

“I look forward to continuing our work together to further strengthen our cooperation for the benefit of our peoples, support Armenia’s peace and sovereignty, and foster closer ties with Europe,” the French leader added.

On the margins of the European Political Community summit, Macron also paid an official visit to Armenia, during which he endorsed Pashinyan’s candidacy, saying that the prime minister advanced the interests of France and the EU.

These events widened and deepened the ongoing row between Yerevan and Moscow, which condemned the Armenian government for not countering Prime Minister Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine, who attended the summit and made anti-Russian statements.

Zelenskyy was another world leader to welcome the results of Sunday’s elections.

“I congratulate Armenia on holding democratic and free elections, and Nikol Pashinyan on his victory. This is also a victory for Armenia’s sovereignty, your independence, and your right to live the way you choose. We wish you success,” Zelenskyy wrote on X.

“Ukraine is ready to expand our cooperation, and now is precisely the time for the European Union to provide real support to Armenia and do everything necessary to ensure that people feel their lives are better thanks to their relationship with Europe. This is a test for the European Union. It is important not to lose time or miss opportunities,” the Ukraine leader added.

In the days before the elections, and angered by Yerevan’s pro-Western tilt, Moscow had stepped up its criticism of Yerevan calling on the Pashinyan government to make a succinct choice between Armenia’s aspirations to join the EU or remain in the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union. Moscow also placed trade bans on certain agricultural imports from Armenia, prompting the EU to pledge more economic aid to Armenia.

Moscow’s reaction to Sunday’s elections was to highlight a decline in support for Pashinyan and his Civil Contract party, with President Vladmir Putin of Russia refraining from commenting on the preliminary election results published on Monday by Armenia’s Central Election Commission.

“We are waiting for the final results,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Monday, adding that Moscow was taking note “numerous irregularities” reported during voting.

The Russian Foreign Ministry criticized the “unprecedented pressure on the opposition and interference from the West, primarily the European Union.”

“The entire election campaign and the voting process itself took place amid harsh repression by the Armenian authorities against opposition parties and movements, their activists and supporters,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said in a statement on Monday.

“The Armenian Apostolic Church, traditionally deeply revered in the country, also came under attack. All of this constitutes a flagrant violation by Yerevan of democratic principles and procedures for holding free elections,” Zakharova added.

She also said that Pashinyan’s party did not gain a “monopoly on power,” apparently referring to the preliminary results, which suggested that the Civil Contract party did not lock in a two-thirds majority it needed to move key legislation, including the amendment of Armenia’s Constitution.

—

President Masoud Pezeshkian of Iran disembarks from his plane in Yerevan on Aug. 18, 2025

President Masoud Pezeshkian of Iran called for the strengthening of relations with Armenia while welcoming the results of Sunday’s parliamentary elections, in which Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and his Civil Contract party emerged in the lead, according to preliminary results.

In a note, Pezeshkian congratulated Pashinyan and the Civil Contract party in their victory in Armenia’s parliamentary elections, expressing confidence that bilateral relations will continue to expand in the coming years.

Pezeshkian highly praised the successful conduct of the elections and described the Armenian people’s renewed support for Pashinyan’s government as a sign of their desire to pursue policies aimed at strengthening peace, development, stability, and regional cooperation in the South Caucasus, according to a press statement from the prime minister’s office.

The Iranian president voiced confidence that the positive and dynamic trend in relations between Tehran and Yerevan in recent years would be further reinforced through broader and more constructive cooperation between the two neighboring countries.

According to Pezeshkian, this process will help advance the interests of both nations while contributing to peace, stability, and development across the region through cooperation and joint efforts among regional states.

Iran has been steadfast in its opposition to the proposed Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity—TRIPP—which will come close to its border with Armenia. Official Tehran has said the project would create an opportunity for the United States to increase it political and military presence in the region.

Currently engaged in a war with the U.S. and Israel, Tehran has become even more concerned with the possibility of increased U.S. presence so close to its borders.

—

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said significant progress has been achieved in the normalization of relations between Turkey and Armenia over the past four years.

Speaking after the 10th trilateral meeting of the foreign ministers of Turkey, Azerbaijan and Georgia in Istanbul, Fidan said the normalization process between Ankara and Yerevan is continuing in close coordination with Azerbaijan.

“The process of normalizing relations with Armenia is continuing along the same lines and in close coordination with Azerbaijan. Significant progress has been achieved over the last four years,” Fidan said.

According to the Turkish foreign minister, lasting peace in the South Caucasus would create favorable conditions for the development of regional transport infrastructure and economic cooperation.

“As the foundations of peace are strengthened, transport infrastructure projects will yield even more significant results. As transport infrastructure develops, the socio-economic foundations of peace will, in turn, become stronger,” he said.

Fidan described the ongoing peace process between Armenia and Azerbaijan as the most encouraging example of this vision.

“The will of the parties has created a concrete opportunity for our region. We support the peace process between Azerbaijan and Armenia and hope that a peace agreement will be signed without delay,” he stated.

He added that Turkey expects Azerbaijan’s “legitimate concerns” to be addressed as part of the process leading to the signing of a peace agreement.

The Turkish foreign minister also said that the participants in the trilateral meeting reaffirmed their shared vision for the future of the South Caucasus and their commitment to regional cooperation.

“The stronger the cooperation between our countries, the safer and more stable the South Caucasus will become,” Fidan said.

He further noted that Turkey, Azerbaijan and Georgia have contributed to making the region more resilient in the face of global energy challenges and emphasized the importance of deeper integration in energy and transport infrastructure.

According to Fidan, such integration would also have strategic significance by ensuring safer, faster and more predictable logistics routes between Europe and Asia.

Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan described the recent meeting between Armenian and Turkish businessmen as an important step toward economic cooperation that could also contribute to political processes.

“On June 2, a very important meeting took place in Kars between Armenian and Turkish businesspeople,” he told members of parliament at a joint committee hearing on the Pashinyan administration’s 2025 budget performance report.

He said the meeting was organized by the foreign ministries of Armenia and Turkey, as well as the chambers of commerce of both countries, insisting that last week’s meeting significantly differed from previous business contacts.

“This meeting was significantly different from any previous business interactions, because it had a very full agenda and also generated great interest among business circles in three eastern and northeastern provinces of Turkey,” Mirzoyan said, without elaborating on the meeting agenda.

In his assessment, this is a good start for deepening Armenia–Turkey economic cooperation. Mirzoyan also said he expects another such meeting to be held in Armenia in the near future.

“I expect that within a reasonable timeframe, we will have a second meeting on the territory of the Republic of Armenia,” the minister said.

“I am aware that concrete talks have already started between business circles and individual companies, and I am confident that we will see the continuation of these talks, their materialization, and tangible results,” Mirzoyan added.

The foreign minister expressed confidence that the process will continue and lead not only to economic but also to positive political outcomes.

“A process has started which, I dare to express confidence, will not stop in general and will bring not only good economic results, but will also bring positive political outcomes in its wake,” Mirzoyan said.

—

A vote is being cast in the June 7 Armenian parliamentary elections

Opposition Forces Vow to Challenge Election Results

The Central Electoral Commission released new results of Sunday’s parliamentary elections, which slightly differed from the information shared on its website once the preliminary voting tally was complete on Monday morning local time.

The new results still put Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s Civil Contract party in the lead with 49.28 percent of the votes, but saw a decline in percentage points for the Prosperous Armenia Party, led by businessman Gagik Tsarukyan, whose party now may not be included as part of the new National Assembly.

Despite its victory, however, Pashinyan and his Civil Contract lacked the two-thirds majority they require to enact certain changes, among them adopting a new constitution, which the prime minister has vowed to do, following demands by President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan, who has said that he would not sign a final peace treaty with Armenia if those amendments were not made.

During a press conference on Monday, the CEC chairman, Vahagn Hovakimyan, summed up the results, emphasizing that what was being publicized were the preliminary results. The CEC has until July 3 to announce the final and official results.

“You have all seen the numbers published on our website,” Hovakimyan told reporters. “In fact, they do not include the results of online voting.”

“Furthermore, the percentage calculation that the website system makes is rounded to the nearest hundredth. That is, when you simply add up the numbers published on our website and calculate the percentage from those absolute numbers, you will see that there is a certain difference at the thousandths level,” the CEC chair explained.

Below are the results announced by Hovakimyan.

Number of eligible voters: 2,503,981
Number of voters who participated in the elections online: 410
Total number of voters: 2,507,216
Voter turnout: 1,477 736 (58.94%)
Number of invalid ballots: 17,097.

Hovakimyan then presented the vote tally of the political forces vying for office as follows:
Civil Contract party: 49.825%
Strong Armenia Alliance: 23.281%
“Armenia” Alliance: 9.934%
Prosperous Armenia Party: 3.996%

“The requirement of the electoral code [of Armenia] is that mandates are distributed to those parties, blocs of parties, which in the case of parties that received the sum of the total number of ballots voted in favor and the number of inaccuracies, four percent, in the case of party blocs consisting of up to three parties, eight percent, in the case of party blocs consisting of four or more parties that threshold is 10 percent,” Hovakimyan explained.

These results suggest that the Prosperous Armenia Party does not meet the threshold of entering parliament and only three political forces had cleared the way to membership in the National Assembly. Per the initial results announced earlier, the party had garnered four percent of the votes and would have entered parliament with five seats.

Tsarukyan, the chair of Prosperous Armenia, quickly reacted by demanding a recount of the votes.

The other opposition forces, among them the Strong Armenian Alliance, the Armenia Alliance and the Wings of Unity party, led by Armenia’s former rights defender Arman Tatoyan, also separately demanded a recount, pledging to challenge the election results at Armenia’s Constitutional Court.

Earlier on Monday, a defiant Pashinyan vowed to fight against the opposition forces in parliament.

The prime minister said he and his party have “crushed” their main election challengers, describing them, again, as a “three-headed party of war.” And he again vowed to jail their leaders.

“This will be one of the most important agendas of the political majority and the government, which we must implement without delay and with very decisive steps,” Pashinyan said.

—

The Educational Committee of the Crescenta Valley Meher & Satig Der Ohanessian Youth Center on June 18 will host a lecture on “Los Angeles, Beirut and Artsakh: A Diasporic Trajectory,” presented by Ara Oshagan. The presentation will begin at 7:30 p.m. at Crescenta Valley Youth Center, located at 2633 Honolulu Ave., Montrose, CA 91020.

Oshagan will present work from a trilogy of photography-based projects that traverse three locations of critical importance to Armenian communities and to him personally: Los Angeles, Beirut, and Artsakh.

Oshagan was born in Beirut and displaced to Los Angeles as a youth, where he has lived for more than 40 years. His documentary work in Los Angeles seeks to document a diaspora in time and to reassess how we draw the contours of community. Beirut is a complex and fraught return to his youth and a history of war, while Artsakh and the homeland have long occupied Oshagan’s imagination. He has worked there for more than twenty years and is currently engaged in a project with displaced Artsakhtsi communities. His work in these spaces reflects a diasporic state of mind: fractured, complex, full of longing, and layered notions of home.

The artist will present a broad selection of his work and discuss his experiences, as well as the ways these three sites are interconnected and intertwined.

Ara Oshagan is a diasporic trans-disciplinary artist and curator whose practice explores collective and personal histories of displacement, legacies of violence, identity, and (un)imagined futures. Oshagan has published four books of photography. Oshagan is an Artist-in-Residence at the 18th Street Art Center in Santa Monica, curator at the City of Glendale and Director of Temporary Exhibitions at the Armenian American Museum in Glendale.

This event is open to public and community members. We look forward to seeing you there.

The presentation will be followed by a question-and-answer session. Attendees are encouraged to reserve the date and time for this important discussion.

—