Armenia says ties with US have reached historic milestone in Independence Day

Politics14:39, 4 July 2026
Read the article in: ArmenianRussian:

Armenia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has congratulated the United States on the 250th anniversary of its independence.

The message was posted on the Foreign Ministry’s X account.

“Happy Independence Day to the Government and people of the United States. Armenia and the United States enjoy a historic milestone in bilateral relations, with ample opportunities for further enhancement. We look forward to advancing our ties to the benefit of our peoples,” the ministry said. 

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan had also congratulated U.S. President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance on the 250th anniversary of U.S. independence.

Published by Armenpress, original at 
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Armenpress: Armenia’s Constitutional Court rejects opposition appeals, upholds

Politics19:50, 4 July 2026
Read the article in: Armenian:

Armenia’s Constitutional Court has rejected appeals filed by opposition political forces challenging the results of the parliamentary elections, leaving unchanged the Central Electoral Commission’s decision on the election outcome.

The court announced its ruling during a session held on July 4. The decision was read out by Constitutional Court President Arman Dilanyan.

The appeals were filed by seven political forces that participated in the parliamentary elections: the Strong Armenia and Armenia alliances, as well as the Prosperous Armenia, Wings of Unity, Democracy, Law and Discipline, New Force, and For the Republic parties. They asked the Constitutional Court to invalidate the election results. The court began hearing the case on June 26.

The ruling Civil Contract party participated in the proceedings as a third party, while the Central Electoral Commission, the Prosecutor General’s Office, the Anti-Corruption Committee, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs were named as respondents.

Following the June 7 parliamentary elections, three political forces secured seats in Armenia’s National Assembly. Civil Contract, which won a parliamentary majority and will form the next government, secured 64 seats, while the Strong Armenia alliance won 29 seats and the Armenia alliance 12.

Read the article in: Armenian:

Published by Armenpress, original at 
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Verelq: The Constitutional Court rejected the election results as invalid

There was no surprise. not long ago, the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Armenia rejected the claim of the political parties to declare the results of the elections invalid.


According to the judgment of the CC, the decision of CEC 259 A is “left in force”, it is final and not subject to appeal.


To remind, after the June 7 elections, 7 political forces: “Strong Armenia” and “Armenia” alliances, “Prosperous Armenia”, “Wings of Unity”, “Democracy, Law, Discipline”, “Alliance of Defenders of Democracy for the Republic of the Republic”, “New Power” parties applied to the CC with the demand to declare the election results invalid.

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Asbarez: Constitutional Court Rejects Opposition Appeals, Upholds Election Res

Chief Justice Dilanyan reads the Constitutional Court’s ruling on Jul. 4 (Video screen grab)


Armenia’s Constitutional Court on Saturday upheld the results of the June 7 Parliamentary Elections by rejecting the appeals filed by seven political forces that sought to challenge the results of the elections.

The ruling was announced by Chief Justice Arman Dilanyan, who oversaw the week-long hearings into opposition appeals.

The appeals were brought separately by the Strong Armenia and Armenia alliances, as well as the Prosperous Armenia, the Wings of Unity, Democracy, Law, Discipline, Union of Defenders of Democracy for the Republic, and New Force parties. The New Force party later withdrew from the proceedings.

The defendants were the Central Election Commission, while the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Prosecutor General’s Office, and the Anti-Corruption Committee participated as co-defendants. The Civil Contract party took part in the proceedings as a third party. Hearings before the Constitutional Court began on June 26.

The ruling leaves the June 7 election results unchanged.

According to the Central Election Commission, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s Cilvil Contract Party won the June 7 elections with 49.8 percent of the vote. Strong Armenia came in second with 23.3 percent, followed by former president Robert Kocharian’s Hayastan alliance (almost 10 percent). Businessman Gagik Tsarukyan’s Prosperous Armenia Party did not secure the necessary votes to enter parliament.

The CEC awarded most of the parliament seats claimed by the Prosperous Armenia Party to Civil Contract. This enabled the ruling party to have a 60 percent parliamentary majority required for enacting key laws and installing senior law-enforcement officials and judges. However, Pashinyan’s party was unable to secure a two-thirds majority needed for passing key legislation, including amendments to Armenia’s Constitution.

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168: The taxman is attacking the business. The business will be given 1 week

July 4, 2026

The business will be given 1 week to pay the taxes. In case of non-payment of taxes within one week, the taxman will seize business accounts, movable and immovable properties.

After that, if the taxes are not paid within 30 days, they will apply to the enforcement service with the demand to confiscate the liabilities.

Legislative changes were made in the Tax Code and a new tax payment procedure was established, by which they will force businesses to pay taxes within 7 days from July 1.

“According to the new regulation, a reminder will be sent to the taxpayer on the day of the tax liability through the electronic reporting system. If the obligation is not settled within 7 calendar days after sending the reminder, and the submitted objections are not accepted or objections are not submitted, the tax authority will adopt decisions on the collection of the obligation on the same day, as well as on imposing a lien on the funds of the taxpayer’s bank accounts and movable and immovable property subject to registration or accounting in accordance with the law.

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If the tax liability is not settled within 30 days after the date of the injunction, the appropriate decisions will be submitted to the Enforcement Service for the purpose of enforcement,” the State Revenue Committee warns businesses.

What this means for business is not difficult to understand. All those who, for various reasons, are unable to fulfill their tax obligations on time will be in danger of being hit by the taxman and being shut down.

It’s a little bit, they will block the accounts, and they will put a hold on movable and immovable property. The property that has production significance.

This means that they will paralyze the business activity, they will force them to stop the work until they fulfill their tax obligations.

Timely fulfillment of tax obligations is the duty of any business. But it is not a good day when the business cannot pay taxes on time. That is why they usually use the mechanism of fines. Penalties are calculated for unpaid taxes.

This approach is important because it gives the business time and opportunity to fix its back. It can happen that for 1 month, 2 months, maybe 3 months the business affairs will go badly and it will not be able to pay taxes. After that, the financial problems will be settled, and it will be able to fulfill not only current, but also previously incurred obligations.

This previously operating system gave business a chance to work and recover. Something that, in fact, is excluded by the new regulations.

With the new regulations, business does not get time to come to its senses. The taxman suddenly appears and seizes the business’s accounts, deprives him of the opportunity to use his movable and immovable property. He just locks and closes the doors of the business. He gives time to pay the taxes within 30 days, otherwise he threatens to confiscate the property.

After the expiration of 30 days, enforcement officers enter and confiscate the movable and immovable properties under arrest. Naturally, after the arrest, they are put up for sale in order to pay the business taxes.

Here is the entire process that will take place with these new tax regulations, which will be imposed on businesses that cannot pay taxes on time from July 1. They will no longer wait when they will have the opportunity to do it.

It is difficult to say what part of businesses today are unable to fulfill their tax obligations on time. But there are certainly not a few of them. And all of them, after these new regulations, will be in danger of being hit, of stopping their business activities.

There is no official explanation as to why they decided to put the business under such severe administrative pressure right now. It can be assumed that there has been an increase in the number of businesses that are unable to pay taxes on time and accumulate overdue debts.

Of course, the problem of overdue debts has always existed in Armenia, but there was never an attempt to introduce such regulations before. It is not excluded that now this phenomenon has spread so much that they have gone to such strictures, not even taking into account that it is a serious risk for ensuring the continuity of business activities. This will lead to the bankruptcy and closure of many businesses, the consequences of which will later be expressed both on the economy and on the same tax revenues.

Closing a business is in no one’s interest, but this will lead to it. There are many businesses that cannot pay taxes on time due to financial problems. Under these new arrangements, they will have to raise funds to pay or be forced into bankruptcy.

If the problem is in ensuring the current tax revenues of the budget, judging by the official announcements, there should be no need to introduce such strictures. They even talk about tax overpayment. Although, on the other hand, on the eve of the elections, they took so many new spending obligations, which are not supported by the tax revenues provided by the state budget. And now, as a matter of fact, they are trying to solve these problems with such strictures.

For the same purpose, immediately after the elections, they increased the tax burden on sub-excise goods, from January 1 they will implement widespread stamping of goods, they are going to deprive the micro-enterprises that do not issue 3 times a tax receipt from the opportunity to work in the field of micro-business and turnover tax for 5 years.

It is expected that in the near future such “innocent” tax regulations will continue in various fields, which will burden businesses and consumers. They are already planning to charge a state duty even for importing mobile phones for personal use.

HAKOB KOCHARYAN




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They received regular awards in the National Assembly. Alen Simo, who is leaving the position of NA Speaker

July 4, 2026

Alen Simonyan, who is retiring from the position of NA Speaker, signed the order regarding the regular award, by which he awarded the deputies of the National Assembly and government employees.

In command it is specifically mentioned. “Guided by clauses 12 and 22 of part 2 of article 5 of the “Rules of Procedure of the National Assembly” constitutional law, I order:

1. On the occasion of the Constitution Day, to encourage the deputies of the National Assembly, civil servants and employees of the National Assembly staff with a one-time monetary reward, according to the appendices.

2. Head-Secretary General of the National Assembly, Davit Arakelyan, to ensure the execution of relevant payments in accordance with the legislation of the Republic of Armenia.”

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The decree signed by the Speaker of the National Assembly was published on the official website of the Parliament.

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Predictable decision of the CC: what is the next step?

July 4, 2026

The decision of the Constitutional Court will be announced in the next few hours.

Let’s remind that an unprecedented number of seven political forces are demanding to recognize the results of the elections as invalid.

Of course, with a very high probability, the Constitutional Court named after Nikol Pashinyan will not recognize the results of the elections as invalid and will finally expose the administration’s forgeries.

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Details in the video




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In addition to the Russian version, other “Eurasian” ones are also forming before our eyes

July 4, 2026


In his Telegram channel, Russian analyst Sergey Markedonov referred to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s visits to Yerevan and Baku in a post with the caption “Two worlds, two Ursulas”.

He notes that the representatives of the Brussels higher bureaucracy and the intellectuals of the EU countries like to contrast the “value policy” and “normative force” of the European Union with Realpolitik. According to him, Russia and the USA (a little less often) are considered by them as bearers of cynical principles of foreign political realism, while the promotion of democratic solidarism is allegedly a completely different thing.

“The visit of Ursula von der Leyen clearly showed that Brussels is also not alien to the values ​​of Realpolitik. And it is wonderfully combined with the support of “freedoms and democracy”. On the first day of July, Mrs. President was in Baku.

With all his behavior and rhetoric, von der Leyen showed his Azerbaijani colleagues that the European Commission is much more important than the European Parliament. Whatever decisions the MPs take, those resolutions remain mostly for readers, TV viewers and bloggers, and the EU executive will continue to deepen cooperation with Baku. Even if many inconsistencies of democracy are revealed. And indeed, since the beginning of this year, gas from the Caspian Sea region has reached Germany and Austria.

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The total number of EU importing countries has reached 10 (not half yet, but a little more than a third). After all, democracy, no matter how you look at it, needs to be “warmed up”. Now the term Connectivity Partnership is becoming a key concept in the relations between Baku and Brussels.

The “connection” of Europe and Asia, bypassing Russia. I repeat once more. before our eyes, in addition to the Russian version, other “Eurasian projects” are also taking shape. As long as we don’t sleep,” Markedonov analyzes.

Continuing, he notes that Armenia is in the field of a completely different ideological rhetoric: support for the “European choice of the Armenian people”.

“The president emphasized the existential nature of the cooperation between Brussels and Yerevan in every possible way. Although, if we take a closer look at von der Leyen’s promises, the amount of support promised for the country’s reorientation towards the EU (a package of 52 million euros) cannot but cause a smile. One of my Armenian business acquaintances told me that the “saving measures” offered for his business (wholesale and retail flower trade) are equal to the turnover of his sales for a maximum of two or three days.

In fact, according to the interpretation of the lady president, she understands democracy as a choice against Russia. In that case, the many cases of administrative interference in the electoral process and the manifestations of defamation can also be overlooked. Ultimately, values ​​demand sacrifices,” says Sergey Markedonov.

According to the analyst, in two days, the President of the European Commission presented himself both as a supporter of Realpolitik and as a defender of democratic solidarity. “However, if we look more closely, elements of the first can also be found in the latter approach. Dialectic.

And at the end (the last, in order, but not in order of importance). Georgia was not on the itinerary of von der Leyen’s visit. And that also speaks volumes. The country that was once considered a “beacon of democracy” has now appeared, if not on the “black list”, then at least among the problematic states.

Such a route was conditioned by the current escalation of diplomatic relations between Brussels and Tbilisi, suspension of visa-free regime for some Georgian diplomats and demands for democratic reforms (de facto perceived as dismantling of Bidzina Ivanishvili’s system). The leadership of the EU (especially the European Commission) sees the dominance of the “Georgian dream” as a manifestation of excessive internal and external political independence. What is allowed for Baku is categorically forbidden for Tbilisi,” concludes Markedonov, a Russian Caucasian expert, in his reference to the topic.

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Aliyev’s offer to RA citizens and Pashinyan’s response: “against Azerbaijanis”

July 4, 2026

On July 1, in the article entitled “What role has Baku allocated to the National Security Service of the Republic of Armenia in having an IDMS system related to missing persons, are there any risks in the proposal addressed to the citizens of the Republic of Armenia?” we have alerted we are talking about specific risks.

A few days ago we have reminded  The agreements reached in 2025 with the former director of the NSS, Armen Abazyan, with his Azerbaijani partner.

And only yesterday, the relics of 3 martyrs who were considered missing from the first war in Azerbaijan were found on the ground give up: In general, from 2025 on the Azerbaijani side, the remains and burial places of their own missing persons began to be found often, but despite this, Baku continues to raise this topic on international platforms and point accusing arrows at Armenia.

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Let’s return to the IDMS system related to missing persons and to the offer of Baku to RA citizens to disclose confidential information, which was voiced by the Deputy Head of the State Security Service of Azerbaijan Sharafat Hasanov, and add that recently Azerbaijan already launched Online Inquiry Center (OIC) as: a digital platform for collecting, processing and coordinating data on missing persons:

There are several noteworthy passages here that support the claims and warnings made in our articles cited above.

In particular, in the area of ​​location or search, a preliminary assessment is made of the missing martyr’s circumstances, as a result of which it happened, according to which it is required: “specify the year, the date of the commission of the crime”. as well as other questions with ulterior motives are asked, which can be completed by the citizens of Armenia and Azerbaijan.

In our latest publications, we wrote that Azerbaijan also keeps the “Khojalu Genocide” issue on the agenda in the context of the issue of missing persons, and even names those “responsible” for it: former presidents of the Republic of Armenia, former soldiers, commanders of the first war.

For example, as we mentioned in one of the articles, in the context of the “Khojalu incidents” Baku often remembers the missing national hero of Azerbaijan. Natig Gasimov and claims that he was “killed by Vitaly Balasanyan”. And the Gasimov family is in the center of Aliyev’s constant attention, which, of course, is also done for propaganda purposes.

This claim of ours is confirmed by the latest propaganda machine of Baku publication, where several questions are raised in the context of the process of registration of missing persons:

■ Families and relatives of missing persons have the right to know the truth, to achieve justice and to receive compensation, and this should be ensured by the state.

As for what Baku might understand by justice, we can make assumptions, although the next point actually gives the answer.

■ It is necessary to give a legal assessment of the “perpetrated genocide” of Armenians against Azerbaijanis, and it becomes more relevant.

Here, Azerbaijan specifically refers to the “capture of Azerbaijani civilians” during the First World War.

And Azerbaijan brings these issues to the international community under the name of humanitarian issues and international humanitarian law.

What is going to be done, to what extent is the RA National Security Service, which is directly subordinate to Nikol Pashinyan, participating in the above-mentioned process? We are waiting for the answer to our written request, after which we can say whether the National Security Service of Armenia cooperates in any way with the National Security and Foreign Intelligence Services of Azerbaijan in the context of the registration and search of missing persons by written or unwritten law, and what is the nature of it, to what extent Armenia will benefit from it, to what extent Baku will merely supplement its legal, political and military forces against Armenia. the information base, which will definitely not remain on the shelves. Let’s wait for the response of RA NSS.

Before that, let’s draw attention to the fact that Mehriban Aliyeva, the first vice president of Azerbaijan issues of digitization in the state systems of the country are under control, problems of artificial intelligence development, cyber security.

And if everything is written here according to the laws, then, according to Azerbaijani and non-Azerbaijani political analysts and experts, Mehriban Aliyeva has a huge “unwritten” influence on all power structures, including the State Security Service, which has happened since 2017, when Aliyeva became the first vice president of Azerbaijan, personnel appointments are made through her “dabro”.

For example, the acting director of the National Security Service of Azerbaijan, Ali Nagiyev, with whom Armen Abazyan had once reached some agreements regarding the implementation of joint search operations for missing persons, to that position. has been appointed In 2019, he was born in Nakhichevan.

According to various reports, the Foreign Intelligence Service of Azerbaijan actively cooperates with the diplomatic corps, and Mehriban Aliyeva also has a serious influence on the latter. And the head of the Foreign Intelligence Service of Azerbaijan? This is Orhan Sultanov, he has been in that position since 2015.

In this context, it should be noted that the other day, the President of Azerbaijan Aliyev assigned the State Security Service of the country the powers to carry out operative-intelligence activities for the protection of strategic objects and persons, the protection of which was the responsibility of the State Agency for the Protection of Strategic Objects of Azerbaijan until now.

And Azerbaijan places the proposal related to the missing persons to the RA citizens in the logic of the peace agenda, as well as the provision of maps of mined areas, claiming that a stable and lasting peace is possible not only through political agreements, but also by solving humanitarian problems, and here Baku is not very satisfied with Armenia, although it has started to find the remains of its missing persons from the first war, received maps of mined areas at different times, and finally, kept in RA there are no Azerbaijani prisoners, hostages and imprisoned persons, which we cannot say in the case of Azerbaijan.

Another question is to what extent the RA government puts the issue in this way and considers the return of the Armenians held in Baku as a condition for the establishment of a solid peace in the negotiations, why not support the finding of the remains of our missing persons? We are still not talking about the fact that people left the graves of their sons and children who died in the 44-day war in Artsakh. In other words, Armenia also has many humanitarian issues to raise, even if they require a political solution.

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After June 7, the power crisis deepened, Nikol’s jerky behavior

July 4, 2026

It is surprising when opposition leaders or figures consider July 4 as a dry border day. Even if there is a partial miracle on the 4th of July, it will not change anything by and large, although those small miracles will obviously not happen, and there will not even be a redistribution of mandates. CP did not even show formal restraint to wait until the mandates are distributed. They are already dividing positions among themselves, filtering, and promoting some. 168TVof « expressed such an opinion during the program “Democratic Alternative” party chairman Suren Surenyants.

“The president of the European Commission was in Armenia, and he welcomed the “strong democracy” here. This is carte blanche, and under this Western pseudo-democratic applause, Nikol Pashinyan is establishing authoritarianism in Armenia. This is its highest level, stable authoritarianism, and authoritarianism has existed since the revolution.

On the one hand, we are talking about the permissiveness, complacency and recklessness of the government, on the other hand, it is obvious that the crisis of the government has not been overcome in these elections, moreover, it has deepened. Nikol Pashinyan’s aggressive behavior and rhetoric, as well as the set of external and internal challenges, which cannot be called a crisis, speak of that,” said the opposition figure.

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“The opposition leaders, who fortunately have both human, organizational and financial resources, are obliged to form effective political systems. The main opposition associations, with the exception, perhaps, of the “Armenia” alliance, which is more or less a political system, are not stable political systems, rather they are pre-election associations that become irrelevant after the end of the pre-election process, or will have to be transformed into serious political tools and systems. Otherwise, in a few months we will have to talk about the failures of the opposition, even if the crisis of the government is obvious,” the politician said.

According to Suren Surenyants, on the night of June 7-8, at 2:15, when Nikol Pashinyan’s famous announcement about declaring himself the winner was made, at that moment the counting was going on in the majority of Yerevan precincts, that is, his proxies could not have informed him about the supposedly convincing victory. “This is usurpation of power. But this opposition, unfortunately, is not revolutionary in nature. In addition, they did not manage to form stable political systems, which is perhaps the main omission of the opposition. And June 7 painfully reflected that reality.”

“Authoritarianism is growing, targeted arrests are taking place, they are working in all directions. Intellectuals or leaders of parties are arrested: Chalabya, Tevanyan. It is clear that several political institutions are being paralyzed at the same time, and no matter how many other figures there are in these political forces, the role of the leader is completely different,” said Suren Surenyants.

Details in the video




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