April 18, 2026
Before the elections, the authorities are planning another systemic reform. this time for the police.
Police officers will be given the opportunity to use long-term mortgage lending programs on affordable and preferential terms for the purpose of purchasing an apartment or residential house or building a residential house. the issue is included in the government’s April 18 agenda.
Minister of Internal Affairs Arpine Sargsyan authored the draft of the law “On Amendments to the Law on Police” and considering it urgent.
According to the rationale, the purpose and nature of this regulation is as follows: “…increase the attractiveness of police service and provide additional social guarantees for police officers.”
With the adoption of the project, it is proposed to provide in Article 39 of the Law “On Police” that police officers can use state targeted long-term mortgage lending programs with affordable and preferential conditions in order to purchase an apartment or a residential house or to build a residential house.
At the same time, the RA government will be empowered to define the procedure and conditions for using relevant state targeted programs.”
Of course, the decision is important, but why did it become necessary to make it now, during the pre-election period? Is this another advance to the police to work more diligently in a country that has become a police state?
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“The approach of the youth assures me that RA has a future and will be restored
April 18, 2026
Artak Zakaryan writes: “Before the next parliamentary elections, a unique situation has been created in Armenia.
On the one hand, Nikol Pashinyan and CP, with the “earned” defeats, losses, internal divisions, failed plans and attempts to package all of this as “Peace” during their years of power.
On the other side, there are the opposition forces based on the national agenda, equipped with a new generation, plans for the future, a vision of dignified, strong and safe Armenia, the prospect of the rise of Armenian statehood and the restoration of international positions, as well as an irreconcilable struggle against the created destructive process.
There is practically no other choice.
The citizen of Armenia must either choose self-deception and in the next five years witness how his once developing state is turned into a weak, worn out and depopulated country living under the fear of war.
Or he should choose the hope of changes and in the next five-year period witness the change of the situation, security guarantees, stable peace based on strength and dignity, national unity and the strengthening of the external positions of the state.
Recently, they were studying the data of several public opinion polls, and I was sincerely happy with the following fact. It is also seen in ordinary human interactions.
The majority of the youth of our country do not accept the formula proposed by Nikol Pashinyan and CP. In addition to the painful territorial and security losses inflicted on the state, they are not satisfied with the asphalt of a distant village, colorful renovations and cosmetic “innovations” in this or that field. They do not want to forget their national dignity and spiritual awakening, and they do not want to be deceived by the government’s superficial and show-case policy.
They need a strong country that guarantees the stable development of young people for the next 20-30 years, a safe and dignified life, a strong economy built on internal and external investments, and real opportunities for free self-expression at different stages of life. They need all the components of preservation of spiritual and cultural values and national identity characteristic of the national state to be guaranteed in their country. They really want to be the master of their country, not to arrange their lives within the framework of the “ideas” and demands of the neighboring Azerbaijanis or Turks.
The approach of the youth assures me that the Republic of Armenia has a future, has chances to recover and strengthen, has an internal drive to strengthen statehood and sovereignty, has a mindset based on national values and interests. And most importantly, the majority of youth are pragmatic and do not give in to manipulative propaganda slogans and lies.”
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“This is the face and quality of Kocharian propaganda: lying, faceless and hateful
April 18, 2026
Mikael Minasyan shared this photo on his Facebook page, writing: “This is the face and quality of Kocharian propaganda: lying, faceless and spreading hatred.
At first, these had a different technical task: to clear Robert Kocharyan’s team and family from the stigma of participating in the events of 2018. It was at that time that the first fake page was created, “Mythical Armenia”, which started the “Who brought Nikol to power” PR operation.
After the capitulation of 2020, the next task came, the “We will carry” operation. When that also failed, what continues to this day began: the desolation of the opposition field and the demoralization of the opposition by all means.
Kocharian propagandists are busy with that.
They do it in an ordered and systematic way. While working like a rabid dog, they are marginal and pointless.
If they were effective, Armenia would not have become a province of Turkey, and they would not have remained on the margins of history.
They did not dethrone the worn-out oppositionist from the image of the “voyin” of the second president, whose only memorable episode in the biography was the “Poplovok” incident.
Now there is only one thing left for them to do, to deceive some Russian circles, to steal money under the name of pseudo-resistance struggle, to spread conspiratorial lies and hatred, targeting specific people and families.
But by doing so, they do not approach the people, nor do they become part of the people. With that, they look like Nicole with style, hatred and aggression.
And more details about that tomorrow.”
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Armenia will buy weapons from Russia. Is there such an opportunity within CSTO?
April 18, 2026
On April 1, about two weeks after the meeting with the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, on April 15, Nikol Pashinyan during a NA-Government question-and-answer session had informed.
“We had very long and detailed discussions and reached strategic agreements to deepen cooperation in various fields, the expression of which we will see in the near future.”
And today, during the briefing organized after the executive session, journalists asked Nikol Pashinyan whether there are military-technical agreements with Russia, does your statement mean that Armenia has an agreement to buy weapons from Russia, to which he replied:
“We have military-technical cooperation with Russia, we had it, which at some point was either interrupted or decreased, and we, yes, have an agreement to implement the previously reached agreements.”
Let us remind you that during the government session in September 2022, Nikol Pashinyan had announced.
“We have cases when hundreds of millions of dollars have been paid, but supply obligations to Armenia are not fulfilled, including by allied countries.”
Pretty much the same before this the statement Pashinyan also did this in the National Assembly, mentioning the obstacles to the purchase of weapons or the components of that process.
Առաջին՝ not all countries are ready to sell arms to Armenia,
երկրորդ՝ there are countries that are ready to sell weapons to Armenia, but there are countries that are not ready for the fact that Armenia will buy weapons from a country that is ready to sell them weapons.
երրորդ՝ there are countries that want and are ready to sell weapons to Armenia, but do not have the necessary weapons for objective and subjective reasons,
չորրորդ՝ Armenia is landlocked, and in most cases the transport component does not differ in its complexity from the previous components, sometimes it is more aggravated, including for objective and subjective reasons.
Meanwhile 168.am– tried to find out from the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Armenia through a written request whether the unfulfilled arms supply contracts were signed during the current government, or whether the contracts signed during the previous authorities were not fulfilled, or maybe it refers to the 44-day war and the period that followed it? More specifically, we recalled the agreements with the arms supply reached between the former RA Defense Minister Arshak Karapetyan and the then Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu in August 2021, and asked Suren Papikyan whether they have been moved to the practical stage.
At that time, in response to our questions, from the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Armenia had reported that “the military-technical cooperation between the Republic of Armenia and the Russian Federation and SRT acquisitions are carried out in a planned manner.”
But during these 4 years, we have regularly heard about the complications of Russian arms supplies and the non-fulfillment of contractual obligations by Russia. And in the background of all this, Armenia established military-technical cooperation with India and France.
The timing, motivation and interests chosen by these countries to sell arms to Armenia on different occasions we touched on therefore, we will not refer to them in this case. And the new military-technical reality was called diversification by the RA authorities. And in the concept of transformation of the Army, it is even mentioned in this regard. “Armenia needs combat-ready and equipped with modern equipment and weapons to protect the security, territorial integrity, integrity of the borders and the adopted peace agenda of Armenia, replacing the asymmetric and hierarchical metaphors of relying on one center with symmetrical and non-hierarchical metaphors with many centers. The preferred international military-technical format is the state-to-state approach, based on the single-window principle, excluding the involvement of commercial intermediaries.”
Isn’t it clear, what, to whom, what is the provision of mediated arms supplies?
For the sake of justice, it should be said that although the Chairman of the National Defense and Security Affairs Committee Andranik Kocharyan is also a supporter of the state-state military-technical cooperation format, but in recent years, when various government or government-affiliated circles accused the Russian side of deliberately not fulfilling the military-technical agreements undertaken with Armenia, and even creating obstacles, for example, to prevent deliveries from India to Armenia, he urged “we’ll get into a conspiracy theory and never get out.”
Kocharyan tried to explain the difficulties in supplying Russian weapons with the fact that the Russian-Ukrainian war is going on, and due to this, Russia itself needs weapons, let’s get it right. This was initially, and later, from time to time, he reported that the Russian side had started making some supplies within the framework of the contract.
During this period, however, according to our information, the cooperation of the RA-RF defense departments in the field of maintenance and even modernization of the military equipment in the arsenal of the RA Armed Forces has not been jeopardized.
And the fact that Armenia can acquire weapons from Russia, within the framework of previous agreements, became known to us at the end of last year, but such issues like silence. It is possible that we still have “Tor-M2KM” systems to receive.
And it is nothing that RA Defense Minister Suren Papikyan announced at the meeting with journalists almost in 2025.
“An agreement has been reached between the Ministry of Finance of Armenia and Russia that the amount paid by us should be reduced from the interstate debt, of course, it will be difficult to say in which part of its implementation, but a similar agreement has been reached.”
Anyway, the announcement made during the briefing was remarkable and, why not, useful? We cannot say to what extent we can consider it realistic that Pashinyan’s government will start using military-technical opportunities within the framework of the CSTO as well.
By the way, on one occasion two years ago, Andranik Kocharyan said in the context of Russia-Armenia relations that although Armenia does not participate in the CSTO exercises, the country continues to remain in the CSTO because they hope that «that system may one day be useful from the point of view of national interests of RA”.
It should be noted that since last year, Russian President Vladimir Putin has been offering CSTO members a rearming program.
“We propose to start a large-scale program to equip the collective forces with modern Russian weapons and equipment. Those samples of weapons have proven their effectiveness during real military operations,” he said.
A few days ago, the head of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, Valery Gerasimov, announced that the CSTO has decided to put the main emphasis on the improvement of the unified air defense system. It is a different matter that today’s leaders of RA imagine the establishment of peace by making the army a reserve factor, when recently Moscow and Baku decided to settle the relations deteriorated due to the accident of the plane belonging to the AZAL airline.
Azerbaijan admitted that the downing of the plane took place in the airspace of the Russian Federation as a result of an unintentional operation of the country’s air defense system, and that there will be compensation.
Moreover, the foreign ministries of the two countries jointly statement it is mentioned. “The steps taken confirm the desire of both sides to build mutually beneficial cooperation in the framework of alliance cooperation.”
Let’s remind that after the 44-day war, in February 2022, the presidents of Russia and Azerbaijan Vladimir Putin and Ilham Aliyev signed in the Kremlin Declaration on allied cooperation between Russia and Azerbaijan, which brought a new level to the relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia’s ally Russia.
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“We left our homes crying… due to the return of Artsakh and Artsakh Armenians
April 18, 2026
More than once, Nikol Pashinyan and his associates have stated that not only the issue of Artsakh is closed for them, but also the issue of the return of Artsakh Armenians. Nikol Pashinyan always says that “Artsakh Armenians should forget about returning to Artsakh and settle in Armenia.”
Today, during the NA briefings, Taguhi Ghazaryan, member of the CP, announced that they “do not discuss the issue of refugees with Azerbaijan, therefore, those forcibly displaced from Artsakh should take advantage of the programs offered by the RA government and stay in Armenia.”
Artsvik Sargsyan, the mayor of the city of Shushi occupied by Azerbaijan says that he has been hearing such statements from the Armenian authorities for more than 2 years, but this does not mean that they should give up exercising their right to return to Artsakh.
“Azerbaijan has been saying for 30 years that one day we will “liberate” Artsakh, they said, but they did not imagine, now that the RA government says that the issue of Artsakh is closed, they do not imagine that the day will come, and the people of Artsakh will return to their homeland.
Of course, this refusal policy of the Armenian authorities does not have any logic, the Artsakh Armenians were forcibly displaced from their homeland, under the threat of physical extermination, therefore, they must return to their homes. The Armenians of Artsakh would have been genocided if they had stayed in Artsakh, that’s why they left their homes, but the day of solving this issue must surely come.” 168.amArtsvik Sargsyan said in a conversation with
The mayor of occupied Shushi believes that one day justice will be restored and the world will accept that Artsakh is an Armenian territory. In this context, he again reminded Azerbaijan’s policy: for 30 years, Azerbaijan’s goal has been to occupy Artsakh, while the RA government adopted the policy of denying Artsakh after the loss of Artsakh.
“We did not lose Artsakh because Azerbaijan won the war, but we lost it as a result of an organized defeat.
We have left everything in Artsakh: sanctuaries, graves, the fate of which we do not know anything about, although Azerbaijan builds roads on some graves and receives God’s punishment, those roads are being destroyed indiscriminately,” emphasized Artsvik Sargsyan.
At the same time, our interlocutor mentioned that the issue of the return of Artsakh and Artsakh Armenians should be resolved “freshly”, that is, we should not wait for decades to pass, then raise the issue, we should always talk about the issue, talk until it receives its positive solution.
“The solution of the issue should be in the near future so that it is easy.
If the RA leader did not recognize Artsakh as a part of Azerbaijan, it would not have happened like this, Aliyev would not have taken the opportunity and said: “It’s mine, I’ll do as I want, Armenians shouldn’t live here either.”
This was the reason why the Armenians of Artsakh were deported in September 2023, but this was not an escape, but a rescue, because I already said that if the Armenians of Artsakh had stayed, they would have been massacred. It is not pleasant for anyone to leave his home and go out, to leave his home and live in such a status today. We left our homes crying, especially the adults, how many unfortunate incidents happened on the way of migration.
After all this, the person who gave up the goal of returning to Artsakh from Artsakh is not an Artsakh citizen, that’s all I can say,” stressed Artsvik Sargsyan.
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If this regime is reproduced, Armenia will become Artsakh-2, we will become a tribe again
April 18, 2026
It is impossible to erase from the memory of our people or to separate from its essence the bright spots, the awakening that we had in the course of history, for example, the Artsakh movement. This group rebels against all our values, they say that our problems come from Mesrop Mashtots. I mean, in the near future, you will force us to give up the Mesro alphabet, to switch to the Latin alphabet? If they stay in power, they will do that. They are trying to remove us from all our values, and they consider national awakening as an adventure. 168TVof « expressed such an opinion during the program poet Husik Aran.
“If independence was automatically given to other Soviet peoples, our independence was restored with the Artsakh liberation war. They are trying to blacken, erase, put a cross on one of the brilliant pages of our nation’s history. Only the enemy can do this. You cry when you see that in your independent state there is such persecution against your values, identity, symbols, history, when they say: let’s erase it, write a new one. Nicole, we don’t have as much Armenia as the brooch you gave. According to your confession, 240 sq. “KM is occupied, so cut that brooch with scissors,” said the artist.
“Nikol Pashinya, your policy is finally leading us to genocide. Erdogan and Aliyev seem to have broken our ideological foundations, and with this regime, they are trying to destroy and pulverize everything, but they will not succeed. Our people are irreconcilable with it, they cannot remove neither the Armenian Apostolic Church, nor the memory and condemnation of the Genocide, nor the desire to pursue historical justice, nor Mount Ararat and our other symbols. Today, they are turning us from genocidal to genocidal. “How is it that we allegedly committed genocide against you, Turks, but the entire territory remained for you,” the poet noted.
According to Husik Ara, in 2021, Erdogan supported Nikol to be elected and stay, and now they are supporting him to give Syunik, Gegharkunik, Yerevan and finish it.
“After that, there will be no Nikol, no Armenians here, and there will be no question of staying or not. In 2021, we said that if CP remained with its leader, we will lose Artsakh. Now we are saying to keep Syunik and Gegharkunik, soon it will be a problem to keep Yerevan. If they were reproduced again, Armenia will become Artsakh-2. The same fate awaits Armenia as Artsakh. Artsakh is a fresh example, it’s in front of my eyes, it’s not 100 years away, it happened yesterday, and today the same thing threatens us.”
“Will Armenia become “West Azerbaijan”? Will it be called peace? Should we believe a man who has brought at least three big wars during the eight years of his rule? How can he who brings war bring peace? Peace is built with strength and dignity. June 7, yes, is a day of fateful choice. This is our last chance to be or not,” said Husik Ara.
Details in the video
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Entry in pairs. Isn’t the MFA organizing the “Yerevan Dialogue” conference?
April 18, 2026
On April 15, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Armenia made another purchase from Gevorg Aghabalyan PJ under the one-person purchase procedure without a tender. The price of the contract is 13 million 200,000 drams. With this amount, the individual entrepreneur will provide a concept and technical support service within the framework of the “Yerevan Dialogue” international conference on May 5-6.
Last year, within the framework of the same event, the MFA made a purchase both from Gevorg Aghabalyan Private Equity and from his wife “Mariam Abgaryan Hovsep” Private Equity. By the way, he made the purchase on the same day, June 5. The Ministry signed a contract with Mariam Abgaryan Hovsep’s private enterprise for the price of 10 million 168.070 drams, and with her husband – for 6 million 852.252 drams.
In 2024, within the framework of the same event, the spouses signed 3 more contracts with private individuals: the price of the contract signed with MARIAM ABGARYAN HOVSEP JSC on August 8 was 73 million 678,660 drams, and the price of the contract signed with Gevorg Aghabalyan JSC on the same day was 51 million 924,455 drams.
Later, in October, another contract was signed with Mariam Abgaryan again within the framework of the “Yerevan Dialogue”, this time worth 23,598,715.
About these private companies that sign many contracts worth millions of drams with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other state departments.
It is said that in the days of the revolution of 2018, Gevorg Aghabalyan provided a free stage during the rallies of the Republic Square in order to support the movement led by Nikol Pashinyan. Perhaps it is also for this reason that Gevorg Aghabalyan LLC, which received state registration in 2008 (Mariam Abgaryan Hovsep LLC, registered in 2019), appears in the state procurement system after 2019.
By the way, in March, Gevorg Aghabalyan republished on his Facebook page the post of RA Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan, in which he thanked for having an honorable place in the CP election list.
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168: Pashinyan is part of Epstein’s Coalition of Child Abusers with Kind Smiles. Wow!
April 18, 2026
Nikol Pashinyan is part of the “Epsteinian coalition”, he symbolizes the violation of order not only in Armenia, but also in the world, and with his speeches he repeats the anti-Armenian and racist texts of Erdogan and Taleat. 168 TVof Revue gave such an assessment on the air of the program director of documentary films, human rights defender Hovhannes Ishkhanyanexpressing his opinion about Nikol Pashinyan’s yesterday in the National Assembly noisy speech and about calling opposition voters “dogs and shangyal”.
The human rights defender puts forward a very remarkable point of view, noting that Nikol Pashinyan, with his behavior and actions, essentially symbolizes the current world trends – the violation of world order and the subordination of law to brute force.
According to Ishkhanyan, “the world order is imprisoned in the prisons of Baku”, that is what the imprisonment of the military-political leadership of Artsakh, self-determined by international law, means.
«This guy says the racist and anti-Armenian texts of Erdoğan-Taleat here, and this does not only apply to Armenians. Isn’t he handing over the Kurds, isn’t he handing over Iran through that “Zangezur Corridor”? Artsakh was a self-determined state unit through the development of democracy, but it handed over to Aliyev. And this boy symbolizes the violation of order not only in Armenia, but also in the world. “Epstein’s coalition” they say, they are part of that “Epstein’s coalition”, child abusers with kind smiles.
Who did America hit first in Iran: school students? The collapse of international law was carried out by this “Epsteinian coalition”, and what we Armenians have to do here seems like a very small thing, getting rid of Nikol, but in fact it is a very important work contributing to the development of the planet Earth. Our military-political hostages, who are imprisoned in Baku prisons, are participants in the restoration of world order. The world order is imprisoned in Azerbaijan“, comments Hovhannes Ishkhanyan.
The human rights defender referred to another statement of Nikol Pashinyan today: “If the people decide that I should stand under the wall of shooting, I will stand silently under the wall of shooting.”
In response, the human rights defender reminds that the death penalty has been abolished in Armenia, and justice is decided by the courts in Armenia. “Since Nikol Pashinyan is a constitutional violator and does not know that Armenia is a legal state, the death penalty has been abolished in Armenia. it was abolished in 2001, when Armenia joined the Council of Europe, because it is not aware of this, let me say that in Armenia it cannot stand under the wall of shooting, because there is no death penalty in Armenia, this is one thing, secondly, in Armenia it is not the people who decide who should be tried, but the bodies that carry out justice professionally and through skills are created through the vote of the people.
I hope that the KP will finally understand that democracy is not the decision of the people, but rather the creation of mechanisms of counterbalances, the biggest enemy of which is the KP. There is no absolute counterbalance. They do whatever they want, starting with the Institute of Human Rights and ending with the Prosecutor’s Institute. Today, the CP itself chooses a Human Rights Defender. This did not become an independent body, this did not become a body that does not depend on the government, and democracy is the creation of counterweights in these issues, where the people’s vote is essential, but the people are direct participants in the settlement of other issues, not saying, “Take Pashinyan, shoot him under the wall.” Who are you to say that? We have courts for that, and there is no death penalty in Armenia»։
Let’s remind that today, April 18, during the Government’s briefing, Nikol Pashinyan said in response to a journalist’s question: “Whenever the RA people decide that I should leave, I will leave. I became Prime Minister through the revolution and naturally I have always recognized and still recognize the right of the people of the Republic of Armenia to make a revolution. If the people decide that I should stand under the wall of shooting, I will stand silently under the wall of shooting.”
Full interview in the video.
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Armenian lawmaker says constitutional reform agenda ‘entirely domestic’, not l
A senior Armenian lawmaker representing the ruling Civil Contract party reiterated on Saturday that the authorities’ intention to call for a constitutional referendum has nothing to do with Azerbaijan’s demands.
MP Artur Hovhannisyan, the Civil Contract faction secretary in parliament, told reporters that the current Armenian government has promoted the idea of a new constitution since 2019.
“The issue of adopting a new constitution is entirely a domestic agenda of Armenia,” he said.
Azerbaijani officials have been saying that Armenia needs to change its Constitution in order to achieve a final peace.
Hovhannisyan said that Armenia does not set any preconditions for signing the already initialed peace deal with Azerbaijan, as that would lead to a deadlock.
“The issue of the return of captives, as well as the withdrawal of Azerbaijani troops from the territory of Armenia, can be resolved in conditions of peace, and we will proceed with this agenda, which we have repeatedly stated. We are not setting any preconditions, because setting preconditions is essentially a path leading to a deadlock and means failing to resolve the issues,” Hovhannisyan said.
Armenia and Azerbaijan initialed a peace agreement in Washington on August 8, 2025. Following this, the Azerbaijani side stated that it would sign the peace agreement with Armenia once Armenia changes its Constitution, claiming that Armenia’s Constitution contains territorial claims against Azerbaijan.
The Armenian authorities have repeatedly denied Baku’s claims that Armenia’s Constitution contains territorial claims against Azerbaijan. At the same time, a new draft Constitution is under development, which, according to the Pashinyan administration, has nothing to do with Azerbaijani demands and is driven by the need for reforms.
Published by Armenpress, original at
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Speaker Simonyan meets Armenian patriarch in Istanbul
Armenian Speaker of Parliament Alen Simonyan, within the framework of his visit to Istanbul for the 152nd Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) Assembly, visited the Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople and met with Patriarch Sahag II.
“The Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople addressed recent confrontations over the past year between some clergy of the Armenian Apostolic Church and representatives of the Government of Armenia, expressing his concerns in that regard,” the Patriarchate said in a readout.
Archbishop Sahag II Mashalian expressed hope that “reconciliation and harmony will soon be reestablished between the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin and the Government of Armenia.”
The Patriarch also emphasized the “importance of ensuring the smooth development of relations between Türkiye and Armenia, the establishment and strengthening of diplomatic ties in the future, which would inspire peaceful coexistence and joint development among the peoples of the region.”
He also wished success to Speaker Simonyan in his “patriotic” activities.
According to the readout, Speaker Simonyan also expressed a desire to meet with representatives of the Turkish-Armenian press in Istanbul, and the meeting took place in the Patriarchate’s hall.
Published by Armenpress, original at
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