Beginning his speech by referring to conflicts in the region, Bahçeli said the world is going through “increasingly intense hard-power wars.” He argued that tensions around the Strait of Hormuz and developments in the Eastern Mediterranean are products of the same strategic calculations and stated that the occupation in Palestine has continued for years.

“Israel, which stands before us today as a blood machine that has sucked the region’s veins of peace, has also attacked Lebanon,” Bahçeli said, describing Netanyahu as a “mechanism for crisis production.”

Saying that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had been targeted by Netanyahu, Bahçeli commented, “This is a declaration of Netanyahu’s helplessness, panic, and exhaustion.”

Bahçeli stated that they found the compromise memorandum signed between the United States and Iran “encouraging,” but they are following the process carefully. Emphasizing that “the opening of the door to diplomacy does not mean the closing of the door to precaution,” Bahçeli stressed that rhetoric and initiatives that could increase tensions should be avoided until the agreement becomes official.

A New Name for the Trump Route

During his speech, Bahçeli also changed the name of the Trump International Route for Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP), which was signed last year in Washington by Trump, Pashinyan, and Aliyev. Bahçeli said, “We called it Zangezur, but now let’s call it by its proper name. This route is the Turan* Corridor.”

The Zangezur Corridor designation officially used by Bahçeli and Turkey actually refers to a specific regional and micro-scale transportation route aimed at connecting mainland Azerbaijan to the Nakhichevan Autonomous Republic through Armenia’s Syunik Province, and from there to Turkey. Since the corridor passes through Armenian territory, Armenia refers to it as the Syunik Route. The Syunik Route also forms part of the Trump Route.

Highlights from Bahçeli’s speech are as follows:

“We cannot read developments in the South Caucasus separately from this broader picture. Political activity in Armenia directly concerns the new reality that emerged after the Karabakh wars, the Russia-West competition, the Turkey-Azerbaijan axis, the Middle Corridor, the Zangezur connection, and the possibility of regional peace. Let us remember that after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the occupation process that began in Karabakh locked the South Caucasus for nearly thirty years. Azerbaijani territories remained under occupation, hundreds of thousands of people were displaced from their homes, the region’s transportation and trade arteries were blocked, and the khari bulbul flowers [of Karabakh] waited longingly for the Turkish victory dawn. Karabakh, the bleeding wound of the Turkic world, became a prayer for independence patiently nurtured by our kin. The unending pain of Khojaly and the burned and destroyed lands of Shusha, Aghdara, and Lachin became wounds of sorrow engraved in the heart of the Turkish nation.

Zangezur Will Reunite Nakhchivan with Azerbaijan

But thankfully, in the autumn of 2020, truth prevailed, and the Turkish steel wrist wrote history in Karabakh. The law trampled in Karabakh was restored by the iron fist of the Turkish soldier. Thanks to God that we have lived to see the days when the chains of Karabakh’s captivity were broken. Thanks to God that we witnessed mornings when the crescent-and-star flag once again rose over the mountains of Shusha. Thanks to God that the khari bulbul flowers now bloom in the lands of Karabakh watered by the blood of our martyrs, no longer as a symbol of sorrowful waiting but as a sign of victory. At this point, special and careful attention must also be paid to the Zangezur route, which is the strategic connection of the Turkic world between east and west. Zangezur is a historic passage that will strengthen Nakhichevan’s bond with motherland Azerbaijan and connect Turkey, through brotherly Azerbaijan, to the Caspian and beyond the Caspian to Turkestan. Zangezur will be Nakhichevan’s reunion with Azerbaijan. This means that the consciousness of “two states, one nation” turns to a strategic climate spreading across the entire Turkic world.

This Route Is the Turan Corridor

We called it Zangezur but now let us call it by its proper name: this route is the Turan Corridor. The Turan Corridor is the historic and cultural gateway to the future extending from Kars to the steppes of Turkestan. When this gate opens, the ideal of reunion preserved in hearts for centuries will take tangible form. The barriers sought to be erected between Anatolia and Turkestan will disappear, and the Turan horizon will become clearer, closer, and more powerful. At a time when global trade routes are being reshaped, when the northern route has become sensitive due to war and sanctions, and when southern sea routes from Hormuz to the Red Sea have become hostage to crises, the opening of the Turan Corridor is a strategic opportunity for our region and for Turkey. Considering current challenges, this route will diversify Turkey’s and our region’s export corridors and increase our country’s logistical capabilities. In such a difficult period, when regional states are trapped in economic constraints, the opening of the Turan Corridor will be an economic and geopolitical leap extending from Ankara to Turkestan.

The Turan Corridor Will Be Opened

It will bring economic vitality to Turkic lands from Kars to Iğdır, from Nakhchivan to Baku, and will constitute one of the main transportation and trade routes of the new century. The Turan Corridor is the strategic key to the Century of Turks and Turkey. Turkey will be connected to the Turkic world not only through bridges of the heart but also through railways, highways, and energy lines. The Turan Corridor will be opened. The Turkic world will unite, and the Organization of Turkic States will become stronger. Hearts that swore by proclaiming, “Our struggle continues until a Nationalist Turkey and Turan!” will breathe a sigh of relief. Now there is a new phase before us. Armenia will either continue to pursue its old mentality of occupation, diaspora ambitions, and desires for revenge, or it will accept the new reality of the region and open the door to lasting peace. The foundation of this new reality is clear: Karabakh is Azerbaijan. This reality has been confirmed both on the battlefield with blood and at the negotiating table on legal grounds. The paths that seek to preserve the old mentality of occupation under new disguises are closed. Normalization is possible only through abandoning the language of historic hostility toward Turkey and Azerbaijan, accepting the new reality of the region, and respecting a framework of fair cooperation.

If Yerevan comes to its senses and honestly joins the framework of regional cooperation, the Turan Corridor could become not only a gateway for Azerbaijan and Turkey but also a way out of economic isolation for Armenia. Otherwise, Armenia will cling to dreams lost in the past and waste the opportunities of the future. No formula that erodes the achievements of dear Azerbaijan, obstructs the Turkic world, and draws inspiration from Soviet remnants can be lasting. The Nationalist Movement Party’s ideal of Turan and the People’s Alliance’s** 2053 and 2071 vision point in the same direction. That direction is the Century of Turks and Turkey. For this goal, we will not get tired, we will not be discouraged, and we will not be defeated. We will overcome the obstacles placed before us with awareness, pass through them with patience, and leave darkness behind with perseverance. We will not take a single step back, nor will we hesitate for a moment.”

* “Turan” is the historic term used to refer to the “cultural and political unification” of Turks from Turkey to Middle Asia. (e. n.)

** This is the name given to  the alliance of ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and Bahçeli’s Nationalist Movement Party (MHP). (e. n.)

But Turkish soap operas are not what I wanted to write about. This last week my mind went back to my second year after we had moved to Beirut. Almost sixty years have passed and I started thinking about two memories from those days that relate to what I was saying about being a good listener. Take Heathcliff for example. He is the protagonist of Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights. In that  second year, our curriculum for English class included concise/summerized versions of British literature classics. We were doing Wuthering Heights at one point. At the age of nine, I was so affected by that tragic love story. I don’t know if you have read the novel but it is mainly about love-gone-wrong because of a big misunderstanding. Heathcliff, a poor street orphan falls in love with Cathy, the daughter of the rich man who had taken him into his home.

For sixty years I have felt sad for Heathcliff and Cathy because they could not live the great love they deserved...a mutual love. And that is simply because Haeathcliff overhears a conversation in which Cathy tells of how imposssible marrying him would be because of his lower social status. He misses of course on the part where she tells of her great love for him despite his status because he rushes out  angrily and disappears for many years. And they never unite again. For sixty years my heart has ached sadly because of the question, ‘what if Heathcliff had waited to hear the whole story and had found out Cathy’s profound love for him...?’ I think my lifelong softness towards star-crossed lovers began from reading that tragic chapter in Bronte’s novel.

The protagonist in the second memory about good listeners is no other, but me! This time it was in the Armenian literature hour. We were doing a short folktale about Paregentan. For a while I listened to the teacher and the other students reading excerpts from the story in our textbook but then for one reason or another, my mind flew somewhere outside the classroom windows. All I remember is that there was an old simple-minded couple and how someone had cheated the wife of some oil and flour bags and had disappeared, the husband on coming home had rushed after Paregentan. I never understood why would the husband run after paregentan to catch it. Since the teacher had told us that Paregentan was a holiday. And then, there was the bit about a horse having four legs and a man having two legs. How could someone run after a holiday? This mystery had stayed with me for all these decades…I had never bothered to read the story in all these years.

The other day I told my colleagues that I was going out to photograph the paregentan celebration at the Karagozyan school. Pakrat Estukyan, one of our editors tried to explain Paregentan to one of our non-Armenian colleagues, telling her it is a special day full of merry fun with costumes before the beginning of the seven-week-long pre-Easter fast. I jumped in and asked if he knew such and such story about Paregentan that talks about a horse with four legs and a man looking for Paregentan.

Pakrat told me the whole story and one bit of information that I had missed sixty years ago in the classroom because I had not listened carefully, made the whole story have sense. Apparently the wife in the story was so naive that she had thought a stranger passing by was Paregentan and had given him the oil and flour because her husband had told her that he had bought them for Paregentan. The stranger seeing her naivete, had pretended to be Paregentan. That’s why her husband was running after Paregentan, aka the stranger. He had rushed after him on horseback. But in the end, the stranger, the so-called Paregentan , had lied by telling the man the thief had gone by him a few minutes earlier. He also convinced the husband that he should chase after him on foot because his two legs were faster than the four legs of the horse. In the end, the stranger not only went off with oil and flour, but also with a horse. Talk about simple mindedness!

Commemorating the Syriacs who were massacred during Sayfo, the European Syriac Union stated: “Sayfo is one of the deepest ruptures in the history of our people.” The statement continued: “During this period, hundreds of thousands of Syriac women, men, children, and elderly people lost their lives. Survivors were forced to convert, exiled, or compelled to migrate. Villages were emptied, churches and monasteries were destroyed, and our millennia-old presence was systematically targeted. Sayfo is not merely a tragedy of the past; it remains a fundamental reality shaping our identity and our search for justice today.”

The ESU statement included the following remarks: “During this process, some local power centers and certain Kurdish tribes also participated in the attacks, thereby expanding the scale of the massacres against the Syriac people. Acknowledgment of this historical responsibility is essential for justice and genuine reckoning.

Although more than a century has passed, Syriacs in the Middle East still face oppression, discrimination, forced migration, and violations of fundamental rights. The failure to confront crimes committed in the past has paved the way for new forms of oppression in different periods. Recognition of Sayfo is of vital importance both for preserving historical truth and preventing similar tragedies.

Sayfo Must Be Recognized Internationally

Despite all the suffering it has endured, our people continue to struggle to preserve their language, culture, and faith in both their homeland and the diaspora. Denial of Sayfo does not lessen the pain; on the contrary, it deepens wounds and delays justice. Recognition of historical truths is a fundamental condition both for honoring the memory of the victims and for preventing future violations. As the European Syriac Union (ESU), we reiterate our call for international recognition of Sayfo. We advocate for the protection of human rights, freedom of religion, and the fundamental rights of the Syriac people, and we demand the protection of our people’s presence, security, and cultural heritage in their homeland.

The positive messages expressed by the Republic of Turkey toward the Syriac community in recent years are noted and appreciated. Nevertheless, genuine reconciliation requires the acknowledgment of Sayfo as a historical fact and the expression of a sincere apology for the suffering inflicted on the Syriac people. Such a step would contribute to healing the wounds of our people while also strengthening Türkiye’s democratic and legal standing internationally. Confronting historical injustices is a sign of institutional maturity and self-confidence.

Failure to recognize Sayfo also means failing to recognize the suffering experienced by the Syriac people. For this reason, the problems faced by our community continue to this day. Property disputes arising from treasury, land registry, and cadastral issues in many Syriac villages in the Tur Abdin region are causing serious concern. Protecting property rights and resolving these issues in a fair and transparent manner are of great importance. We call on the Republic of Turkey to confront Sayfo, recognize historical truths, acknowledge the suffering of the Syriac people, and resolve ongoing property disputes on the basis of justice. Truth, justice, and reconciliation can only be achieved in this way. On the 111th anniversary of Sayfo, we bow respectfully before the cherished memory of our victims and declare our determination to continue the struggle for a future based on truth, justice, equality, and human dignity.”

DEM Party: Hundreds of Thousands Lost Their Lives

In the statement published by Yüksel Mutlu, Deputy Co-Chair responsible for the Peoples and Faiths Commission of the DEM Party, it was said: “June 15, 1915, is one of the starting dates of the great catastrophe and mass extermination process directed against the Syriacs, one of the ancient peoples of Mesopotamia. During this period, remembered in Syriac collective memory as Seyfo, meaning ‘sword,’ hundreds of thousands of people lost their lives or were displaced; the language, culture, faith, and historical existence of a deeply rooted people were targeted.”

The statement noted that, despite the passage of 111 years, the pain caused by Sayfo remains alive in collective memory: “As long as the truth is not confronted, justice is not established, and historical responsibility is not accepted, this pain will continue to be passed down from generation to generation. The Syriac people demand not only recognition of the great destruction they suffered in the past, but also the right to live today as equal citizens with their own language, faith, and culture. This is a requirement of a democratic society and shared coexistence.”

Emphasizing the need to confront Sayfo, the statement continued: “In the lands of Mesopotamia and Anatolia, where peoples, faiths, and cultures have lived side by side for centuries, the path to lasting peace, democratization, and social justice lies in confronting the truth. While denial of the past creates new wounds, reckoning and justice open the door to a shared future. As the DEM Party, we embrace the Syriac people’s demand for justice and reckoning, and we respectfully commemorate those who lost their lives during Seyfo. We once again express that we share the pain and memory of the Syriac people.”

Diyarbakır, the hometown of most of my elders, is such a city for me. Of course, it has changed greatly and continues to change; the city is acquiring an entirely new face. I do not know whether that is good or bad. At the very least, the Sur district, apart from its crowded and noisy main shopping street, has become almost unrecognizable. The back streets bear little resemblance to what I remember from my first visit in 2007. But what truly defines a city is its people. And once again, Diyarbakır embraced me thanks to them.

Since the Covid pandemic, I had only been there once. Even that visit hardly counts, as I was there to guide my nieces and nephews from France who were curious to see the city whose name they had often heard from older family members. Last weekend, however, I was there again. I attended the first group exhibition of the 4Ro Photos collective. The exhibition is called “Stories of Mesopotamia.” I have been part of this collective, which has existed for nearly three years.

4Ro Photos was initially established as a platform to give voice to photographers from southeastern Turkey who work around common themes such as roots, identity, memory, and the human condition. In short, it is a collective of people who share the same curiosity about humanity. Most of the photographers were born and raised in the region; there are two exceptions: Matthieu Chazal and myself. I am part of the group because of my roots. Matthieu, who was French, had been invited because of the extensive and dedicated work he carried out in the region over the last twenty years; he had become one of us.

I say “had become” because, sadly, he passed away in 2024 at the age of only 49. His work is also featured in this first exhibition of 4Ro Photos. He will remain a member of this collective forever. At the very least, his resilience and humanistic approach will continue to live on as a spirit that inspires us.

We had wanted to bring this exhibition to life for a long time. In fact, we had been waiting for the right moment for years. But we photographers are quiet people, as I mentioned when I was asked to give a short speech at the opening. We do our work patiently and without much noise. We believe in revealing what we pursue only when the time is right. And now, after three years, that time had come.

The Diyarbakır Metropolitan Municipality also believed that the time had come. By demonstrating its trust in the collective, it provided support for the entire exhibition. Thanks to this support, we were able to realize the exhibition, and we are grateful for it. They provided a beautiful, spacious hall at the Çand Amed Congress Center where each of us could display a selection of our work. Zeynep Yaş, Head of the Department of Culture and Arts of the Diyarbakır Metropolitan Municipality and the person behind this support, also announced that the exhibition would later be moved to the Diyarbakır Intercity Bus Terminal.

This is exactly what I mean by a warm welcome; it feels as though you have come home. I will not even begin to talk about my reunion with those wonderful people whom I had not seen in a long time. They deserve an article of their own.

The border crossing, known as Margara on the Armenian side and Alican on the Turkish side, which has been closed between the two countries since 1993, has now been opened for the third time in its history for the purpose of serving as a “humanitarian corridor.”

In accordance with a decision adopted at the June 11 session of the Armenian government and an agreement reached with Ankara, the border crossing will remain open for shipments between June 12 and June 22.

4 trucks and 80 tons of aid

Immediately following the agreement, four Armenian trucks carrying humanitarian aid crossed the Margara–Alican checkpoint on June 12. The trucks will continue their journey to Lebanon using the route through Turkey.

The details of the 80-ton aid shipment, prepared under the coordination of Armenia’s Ministries of Health and Economy, are as follows: 38 tons of medicines and medical hygiene supplies, and 42 tons of canned and non-perishable food products.

Third exception

The border crossing, which Turkey unilaterally closed in 1993, is normally closed to civilian and commercial traffic. This crossing, taking place at a time when expectations are quite high that the border may be permanently opened as part of the ongoing normalization talks between the two countries, is being viewed as an important indicator.

This move has been recorded as the third humanitarian exception in the 33-year history of the closed border:

In February 2023, following the earthquakes centered in Kahramanmaraş, the Alican border crossing was opened for the first time in thirty years to allow Armenian search-and-rescue teams and humanitarian aid trucks to enter Turkey.

Also in February 2023, during the same period, the crossing was used a second time to facilitate the transit of Armenian aid intended for earthquake victims in Syria.

This logistical operation, which began on June 12, 2026, constitutes the third temporary crossing along the border.

Regional public opinion and diplomatic sources predict that this activity at the border crossing, prompted by humanitarian diplomacy, could provide positive momentum to the full normalization process between Ankara and Yerevan and to expectations for the complete reopening of the border.

(Source: Public Radio of Armenia)

I can say that these words are the meaning of my life. How beautiful it is to see Armenia again; at midnight on June 5, I quickly got off the plane with my bags. It felt as though everyone was close to me, everyone was an acquaintance. How I had missed speaking Armenian with everyone, I passed through the visa section laughing, and I even tightly hugged the taxi driver who was waiting for me at the door and whom I knew from before.

Ah Armenia! I had missed your scent, I inhaled it deeply...

To me, "homesickness" works for both countries. Whichever one I go to, I miss the other. I was here to work, report on the elections to be held on Sunday, June 7, and to listen to people from different places and with different thoughts.

I didn't have much of a chance to sleep; I went out into the streets in the morning. I started wandering around Yerevan Square. The same question was always on my tongue, I asked everyone: "Are you going to vote?" Except for one person, everyone answered "Yes". More truly, that person replied, "If I can find time."

As I walked in Freedom Square, I noticed the silence. "Today is one day before the election bans start, what is missing here?" I thought. Aha! There are no election flags! Aha, where are the election vehicles accompanied by different music? Aha, what about the posters? I am so used to that turmoil in Turkey that such normalcy feels strange to me. Given that the people are calm, the city is calm, there isn't even the sound of a horn; wasn't it expectable that the election to be quiet too? Unlike Istanbul, life flows slowly here.

Those who didn't turn Agos down

I walked the roads. "Is there a ban? Did the election bans start today?" I asked. "No, we are always like this," they said. True, I was here during the 2000 Armenia elections as well. That was silent and calm too; I was only able to realize there was an election on that very day.

I conducted interviews with Sarkis Khandanyan, Maria Garabetyan, and Hasmik Hagopyan from the 'Civil Contract' party, chaired by Pashinyan. Since I had interviewed these three before, they did not turn me down—or rather, they did not turn 'Agos' down—and spared their time to give us an interview again. This was an honor for me. Two days before the election, I thought it would be very difficult to get interviews from members of parliament. Smiles were breaking out on my face, while on the other hand, I was trying to get opinions from opposition parties or from different voices. I tried repeatedly, I put in intermediaries, but it didn't work, I couldn't succeed.

While waiting for the hour of Pashinyan's rally, at 16.00, I asked people, "How will the attendance at this rally be?" because there was no one around. It didn't look like a rally area at all. On top of that, time was ticking away, and no one was coming. 17.30, still no one...

When the clock struck 18.00, people with banners, Pashinyan hats, and flags began to pour out of the streets and houses. Where so many people came from all at once, I couldn't make sense of it. I was running here and there, trying to take photos. While having a pleasant conversation with a group that had come from Georgia to support Pashinyan, I lost my spot. My place, which had been in the front rows, was falling further and further back. I asked the guards for the area reserved for the press; there was none. Frankly, I was a bit surprised. I learned later that 32,500 people attended. It was a big number for Armenia. It was so small for me that I asked everyone how many people were at the other rallies. Very few, they said 10 thousand even for the closest rival.

Yerevan rain

The next day, while everyone was silent before the election, I wandered around the parks. I was a guest at a dinner attended by Jirair Libaridian, the chief advisor to the first president Levon Ter-Petrosyan and received his commentary ahead of the Armenian elections.

I had three hours in between to meet with orientalist Armen Petrosyan, an expert from the Orbeli Center. I sat in a garden with a pool in the city center and began watching the fountains. The rain started, I didn't leave my seat, I ordered tea for myself, warmed myself up, and decided to enjoy the rain. I had forgotten the Yerevan rains; the rain blew and thundered, and I was soaked.

No matter, it was still beautiful...

Election day

Early in the morning, I am in the city of Byureghavan. This is a small city; I shot a video for Agos readers in front of the school, which is one of the voting centers. I was excited, my hands were shaking, curious people around had their eyes fixed on me, saying, "Look, she is speaking Turkish," "Aha, a Turk has come." I speak Armenian, saying, "I came from Agos, I will report." They smile and say, "Armenian, Armenian, relax."

All doors are open to me. I talk comfortably, exchange greetings, and leave.

My second stop is Yerevan Chekhov Street, where Pashinyan will cast his vote. Pashinyan is making a statement to the press, and I am trying to listen and understand. This is where I realize how short I am. I got stuck and remained squeezed between huge men. My photos did not come out well at all. In fact, a woman raised her voice about the restrictions imposed on the press, and I couldn't even see her. Ah, if only I were 10 cm taller...

Pashinyan left, everyone is leaving. I also start chatting and laughing with a few of my colleagues from the Turkey press. While still talking with them there, I took a look around me; they are pointing at us, saying, "Look at the Turks, look at the Turks." The next day, an article: "Turks in the streets of Armenia."

I am on the road to Etchmiadzin, rushing to the mass. The Feast of Etchmiadzin is one of the most important days here. I will take communion, my shooting will wait a bit. I welcomed Catholicos Karekin II at the door, received his blessing, and lit my candle for the people of Armenia to pass the elections in a peaceful environment.

During the mass, prayers are made for political prisoners and detained clergymen. I join in. I pray, "My Lord, release whoever is prison unjustly."

At the door, I waited for the Catholicos to place his hand on my head, and I immediately got to work on the video for Agos readers. While I had spoken just a few words, a similar voice in the courtyard again: "A Turk has come", "What business does a Turk have here".

I say, "I am Armenian." They say, "Have you left your sacred mother tongue and are speaking that language? What kind of a person are you, if you were a bit Armenian you would have respect for your language."

Peace in spite of everything

I got down a bit, but I arrived at a school in the Shengavit district of Yerevan. I went inside with my friend and asked for permission to shoot. The last half hour. While people were voting, I took photos with the permission of the ballot box chairs and went outside.

The words my friend heard at the door were disturbing. The poor girl, I gave my phone to her, she was filming me. Someone approached her and showed a hidden threat, saying, "She will leave, but you will stay here. Are you sure you want to film her?" While we were shooting, someone else was filming us with a smile. We asked why; "Mind your own business, I film whatever I want," he says. We left, but I was almost going to cry.

I shot a short video in front of the 'Civil Contract' election center; we were chatting and laughing with a few members of the press from France and with Turkish journalists. The next day, a post on social media: "Turkish female reporter gives a statement to Azerbaijani journalists." Ah, it was me!

And the elections ended.

It is as if I made them win the elections or made them lose. People, bloggers shared me on social media calling me a 'Pashinyan-lover', a 'Zombie woman', and whatnot.

Dear ones, souls, let it be as you say. As long as there is peace, as long as there is happiness, I am ready to be whatever you want.

"Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy!

Blessed are the peacemakers!

Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me!" (Matthew 5)

This is how it is in my faith.

I say, "I am not afraid! I am not deterred! Peace in spite of everything, brotherhood in spite of everything." Whatever your race, language, or religion may be; I love and respect you all.

Long live those who sing songs of brotherhood...

Sölöz, a small village north of Bursa and south of Lake Iznik, was home to a dense Armenian population a century ago. Zakarya Mildanoğlu narrated this history based on a multi-layered spectrum of sources ranging from Turkish newspapers in Armenian script to Ottoman archival documents, and Patriarchate correspondences to missionary reports.

"Today, let alone a school and a teacher, there is not even a single Armenian"

Mildanoğlu mentioned that the Hreşdagabet Church, the largest and most magnificent religious structure in the village, was built of ashlar stone and featured three altars, two entrance gates, and facades adorned with statues. Conveying that the sound of the church's bell—which weighed approximately 235 kilograms and was cast in Zeytinburnu, Istanbul, from equal amounts of copper and silver—reached as far as Lake Iznik, Mildanoğlu said, “I also remember that the bell of the Samatya Surp Kevork Church could be heard from Eminönü."[*]

The church housed rooms for priests, spaces for ritual preparation, and a co-educational school building; expenses were met by the Armenian community, not by the local municipality. In the 1902 academic year, 380 students were educated at the Saint Savorican Boys' School and 270 students at the Saint Hripsimyan Girls' School in the village, with a total of 13 teachers serving in both schools. Drawing attention to these figures, Mildanoğlu said, "Today, let alone a school and a teacher, there is not even a single Armenian."

Church items worth 300 thousand gold coins

Mildanoğlu shared that the Armenian Patriarchate of Istanbul recorded the assets of the spiritual leaderships in Anatolia in 1914, and in an inventory preserved in the archives of Ottoman Armenian historian, researcher, philologist, and educator Arşak Alboyacıyan, the items of the Sölöz Church were recorded one by one; the total value was determined as 300 thousand gold coins at the prices of the period.

Silk and Olive

The economy of Sölöz was built on two main axes: sericulture (silkworm breeding) and olive oil. A large factory affiliated with the Sericulture Institute, which was established following the outbreak of a silkworm epidemic across Bursa, was built in the village. The structure, which is currently in ruins and under private ownership, was Sölöz's most magnificent building.

Conveying concrete evidence showing that the Sölöz Armenians possessed a deep knowledge in this field, Mildanoğlu stated that a sericulture book published in 1907 in Turkish with Armenian script was foremost among these. The silkworm eggs produced in the village were marketed as far as Tbilisi with quadrilingual cards written in Turkish, Russian, Georgian, and Armenian. There were 10 olive oil factories in the village, and olive harvesting was celebrated with festivities during years of abundant harvest.

"We will not endure this torture for 16 hours a day"

In his presentation, Mildanoğlu also touched upon the 1910 women workers' strike. Many cocoon-producing women, young and old, coming from Sölöz, Bilecik, Pazarköy, and surrounding villages, launched a joint strike against the working conditions and wages in the Bursa silk factories. In the factories where male workers earned 6-7 kurush and women earned 5-6 kurush per day at that time, the women workers united and walked off the job. Mildanoğlu read the manifesto published by the women who took part in the strike to the participants.

Stating that the strike ended with a certain compromise and the workers returned to the factory, Mildanoğlu also underlined that while there was comprehensive coverage of the strike in Armenian newspapers of the period such as “İşçi” (The Worker) and “Abaka” (The Future) whereas the strike was never included in Ottoman and Republican labor history.

Stating that a youth, an education, and a women's association were also active in the village, Mildanoğlu mentioned that a large arched ashlar stone bridge was built with the donations collected by the women's association, and a public bath was also built in the village center.

Touching upon the tension between Gregorian and Protestant Armenians in the village, Mildanoğlu conveyed that Apostolic Armenians initially fiercely opposed Protestant missionary activities, physical violence was inflicted on those who sold Bibles, and Protestant shops were boycotted, with these incidents being reflected in the newspapers of the period.

Mildanoğlu noted that he also encountered people from Sölöz in the “I am Looking for My Family” classified ads series published in Agos.

The two prides of Sölöz

Mildanoğlu closed his presentation with two important figures raised in the village. Painter Hovhannes Semerciyan was born in Sölöz in 1920; after migrating to Greece with his family, he went to Paris and studied at the Ecole des Arts Décoratifs. The artist, known by the name Jean Jansem, opened exhibitions in Paris and New York and received a major award in 1958; Japan, meanwhile, built two museums in Tokyo and Nagano in honor of this artist.

The second name was Hagop Oşagan. Born in Sölöz in 1883, Oshagan’s father was a gardener and his mother was a silk factory worker. After being educated at the Armash Seminary, Oshagan worked for Istanbul newspapers and also served as a teacher in Malkara and Istanbul. He was arrested eight times while evading surveillance by the Ottoman police, managing to escape each time; at the end of the war, he crossed into Bulgaria disguised as a German officer. The post-war years turned into a productive literary period for him. His work titled Hankırvanner (Stages), in which he describes the customs and traditions of Sölöz, was published by Aras Publishing.

The event came to an end following the question-and-answer session.

[*] Samatya and Eminönü are two districts of Istanbul and the air distance between them is approximately 3 miles. (e.n.)

This is why this photograph that I took a decade ago in the backstreets of Sur in Diyarbekir, is so precious to me. It could have been a photograph of my favorite cousin Dzovig and me some sixty years ago in Kamishly on our way back from the bakery. Our first of many such trips to get bread for lunch at my grandmother (babaanne) Vergine’s. It is a hot Summer day and I am maybe five or six. Dzovig is a year or so older than me. My grandmother gives us some money and says to quickly get some fresh bread. I am new to this errand, but Dzovig seems to know what to do. I mean, I have already some experience at that age as far as going to one of the neighborhood stores for cigarettes or a kilo of sugar. My father and uncles were all smokers, and they would give me an empty pack and some money and ask me to go get them fresh smokes. Or if there was no sample pack, they would tell you the name and you would rush to the store repeating the name over and over again loudly so you would not make a mistake and get the wrong brand. On returning, sometimes the remaining few cents change would be your present, depending on which uncle it was. They came in various moods and characters.

Dzovig grabs a big towel and signals to me to follow her. It seems she is very happy to go to the bakery. Her happiness gives me a sense of excitement anticipating an adventure. Dzovig was usually fun to be with because she was always full of ideas turning ordinary things into playful pleasure or games. She was usually spontaneous and careless, finding everything funny. She would say anything that came to her mind. She would laugh so much that her face would get red and tears would stream from her eyes. She would get in trouble often because of that careless attitude of hers. And you know? She never changed. I saw her many times after our move from Kamishly. Always the same: smart and innovative and still fun to be with. As a child, I adored her and she loved me too, like best friends.

So, off we go in a hurry as if a clock is ticking. As soon as we come out of the house, Dzovig exclaims, “Berjig, I am so hungry! I hope fresh bread has come out already”. We are running almost, she in the front and me trying to catch up with her. From time to time, she jokes around with the big towel, turning around to show me so that I laugh. Depending on how she wraps the towel around her head or waist, she impersonates a Madona, then a maharajah and then a belly dancer. She is being silly funny, and we are almost chocking with laughter. The funniest is the Maharajah impersonation as she pretends to be singing in Indian... the Indian gibberish we all had learned from Bollywood movies we all loved.

The bakery is just a couple of blocks away. We arrive and immediately Dzovig shouts to the baker, “Uncle, uncle! Three hot loaves please. Grandma Verjin is waiting”! Grandma’s name is like a pass code at the bakery. Immediately he pulls out three hot loaves from the oven and places them on the towel Dzovig has spread on the table. She wraps the towel around them and we start for my grandmother’s. The loaves must be so hot that Dzovig keeps balancing the pile from one hand to the other. But she manages to tear off a piece from one of the loaves and after taking a bite, she passes it to me. I almost burn my tongue, it is so hot. But it is delicious. Then she manages ripping off another chunk and another…she keeps saying, “ah, it’s so good”. By the time we arrive at my grandmother’s, half of one loaf had disappeared. Dzovig spreads the loaves on the sofa in the living room to cool off. She seems a bit edgy and soon enough I understand why. When my grandmother sees the surviving half loaf, she shouts at Dzovig, “açkit korna. Noren hatse halli haram eriris”(May you go blind. You have destroyed the bread again).

While the Civil Contract party received approximately 50 percent of the vote, the Strong Armenia Alliance garnered 23 percent, and the Armenia Alliance took 10 percent. Prosperous Armenia, on the other hand, remained just a hair below the 4 percent threshold at 3.99 percent, and whether it will enter parliament is still uncertain as this article is being written. This uncertainty will directly affect the number of seats in parliament. If the Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP) stays below the threshold, Civil Contract’s number of seats will be 64, have the 3/5 majority of seats which is critical for certain appointments. However, if the PAP enters parliament, the ruling party's number of seats will drop to 61. In this case, it will also lose the 3/5 majority required for certain appointments. Ultimately, although the opposition increased its vote count, Civil Contract emerged as the clear winner by a wide margin.

Why was Pashinyan elected?

The reason for this is not that the electorate loves Pashinyan intensely. At the end of May, Moscow's export bans, the recall of its ambassador, and hints of a "Ukraine scenario" may have triggered a national reflex rather than generating fear. In all likelihood, the war in Iran, the fragile peace with Azerbaijan, and regional uncertainty completely wiped out the voters' appetite for risk. In such a climate, "predictability" won out over "better governance." However, considering this purely as a fear reflex would be incomplete. Deeper down, it may also be an indirect endorsement of the ideology of a "Real Armenia" (considering recognized borders as the homeland, rather than imaginary geographies). The electorate may have turned away from politics that sanctify trauma and the nostalgia of a lost homeland, choosing instead a pragmatic nation-state with defined borders. Therefore, the votes received are not merely a declaration of love but also show that the electorate has made a cold-blooded calculation of risk. This describes Pashinyan’s fragility just as much as it does his strength.

Civil Contract’s vote share

On the winning side of the ledger for Civil Contract is that it won the first regular election held since 2017 by a wide margin, despite a likely loss of seats in parliament. By winning this election, Pashinyan has set himself on track to become the longest-serving prime minister in the history of independent Armenia. Unlike the low-turnout, bloated proportional victory of 2021, this time he won with a high turnout, increasing his absolute votes. In other words, the potential "illusion of legitimacy" we described earlier has given way to genuine popular approval and authorization. Moreover, this authorization can also be read as an "endorsement of a Western orientation" obtained despite open pressure from Russia.

No majority for the constitution

Nevertheless, a 3/5 majority in parliament is required for many regulations pertaining to changes in the election law, appointments for the Constitutional Court, the high judiciary, the Ombudsman, and the Central Election Commission. This means that if the Prosperous Armenia Party enters parliament, the ruling party will not be able to choose or dismiss members of these institutions by acting alone. More importantly, even if a 3/5 majority is secured, the ruling party remains far from the 2/3 majority required to initiate constitutional changes or take fundamental articles to a referendum. Consequently, the election result grants Pashinyan the authority to govern the country, but it does not grant him the authority to rebuild Armenia single-handedly.

Topics such as the Constitution, the Fourth Republic, the final peace agreement with Azerbaijan, and sovereignty debates are issues too deep to be resolved by parliamentary arithmetic alone. If Pashinyan reads this result as "the people gave me the authority to do anything," today's victory could turn into tomorrow's crisis. But if he reads it as "the people gave me the authority to continue, but I need to generate broader social consensus," this election could turn into a new threshold for the maturation of Armenian democracy. Constitutional change is not merely a technical adjustment; it signifies a founding choice regarding how Armenia will define itself.

The opposition front

The balance sheet is also mixed on the opposition front. Strong Armenia consolidated the vast majority of the scattered pro-Russian opposition under a single address. Since this movement apparently did not carry the leading figures of the old regime, it offered voters a "low-cost protest alternative" and attracted votes well above what polls predicted. Furthermore, the fact that the total vote share of the three pro-Russian/conservative forces is around 37 percent shows that this segment is not a marginal opposition, but a real, mobilizable base.

The historical loss for the opposition, however, is that the electorate clearly detected the old system's elites and bureaucratic networks surrounding the movement. In the eyes of society, these cadres are coded as "local representatives of old ideological obsessions and foreign tutelage." These names marching to power could mean a return to Russia's orbit, closed borders with the West, and an oligarchic restoration. Furthermore, as the opposition remained hostage to the language of revenge and nostalgia of its base, it failed to offer voters a bloodless, warless, and positive narrative for the future.

The ballot box is still decisive

This election also carries dual meanings for Armenian democracy. The positive side is that the ballot box is still decisive, and the electorate has not detached from politics. The government drew its legitimacy from the election, but the opposition was carried into parliament with greater strength. This is a democratic resilience that should not be underestimated for a society that has experienced war and trauma.

The fragility in terms of election results is that the Western-oriented, liberal-democratic axis in parliament is represented solely by the ruling party, and this will create a vacuum. The failure of reformist-liberal "third way" parties to enter parliament leaves voters who are uncomfortable with Pashinyan—but do not want to return to the old regime—trapped between two major fears once again. On one hand, the fear of war, instability, and drifting back toward Russia; on the other hand, the fear of power concentrating in a single hand, rapid constitutional transformation, and a peace process advancing without social consensus.

A new beginning and a new question

This vacuum may provide an advantage to Pashinyan in the short term, because the government faces an opposition that is strong but has still not cut its ties with the past. However, in the medium term, this situation poses a risk for Armenian democracy. If Civil Contract wears out by the time of elections in the coming years, a strong, civilian, reformist, democratic, and Western-oriented alternative to replace it is not visible on the horizon today. Such a vacuum does not strengthen democracy; on the contrary, it could trap politics once again in the dilemma of "survival" versus "revenge."

As of June 8, there is now a new beginning and a new question. Will Armenia be able to establish peace and a new constitutional order through a social consensus generated by trust rather than fear? The answer to this question lies not in the finalized percentage of votes, but in the debates on the constitution, peace, and democracy that will unfold from this point forward.

The election may be over, but Armenia's struggle on the path to an advanced democracy is truly just beginning.

The discussion focused on the significance of multicultural publishing from past to present, the challenges encountered, and the place these institutions occupy in collective memory. Speakers included Betül Bakırcı, editor-in-chief of Aras Publishing; Süheyla Yıldız, co-founder of Avlaremoz and an academic; and Seçkin Erdi, publishing editor at istos.

Representatives from Aras Publishing, which introduces Armenian literature and culture to readers; istos Publishing, which has revived the Greek publishing tradition; and the Avlaremoz platform, which focuses on minority rights and combating antisemitism, particularly concerning the Jewish community, shared their experiences. The event was organized as part of Avlaremoz’s 10th anniversary.

One of the speakers, Avlaremoz co-founder and academic Süheyla Yıldız, spoke about Avlaremoz’s publishing policy against antisemitism and its contemporary significance. Yıldız explained:

“Avlaremoz is a platform founded by a few young people, with participation increasing and decreasing over time. It took on the mission of ‘speaking out’ against the silence of previous generations. It is a minority youth movement that also includes Muslims. Nor Zartonk, which emerged through the organization of Armenian youth influenced by identity movements, inspired Avlaremoz. It is one of the few surviving examples of Jewish media.”

Avlaremoz’s Struggle Against Antisemitism

Yıldız recalled remarks made by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan during a television program in 2014: “People called me Georgian; excuse my language, they even called me Armenian, which is much worse. I am Turkish.” Noting that Avlaremoz has a section called “Excuse Me, Antisemite,” Yıldız said:

“In our country too, Jews are seen as being behind every evil. Public awareness is weak. Jews are held responsible for every action of Israel. Using the word ‘Jew’ as an insult is also common in right-wing media. In this sense, Avlaremoz’s struggle is very meaningful.”

Yıldız added that Avlaremoz is no longer limited to issues concerning only the Jewish community but has also begun to address broader social and political problems as well as the concerns of different minority communities in Turkey. She said, “These antisemitic discourses are enough to keep Avlaremoz alive,” and continued:

“In an advertisement Bosch released for Mother’s Day this year, the concept of a dog mother became a topic of controversy and caused discomfort. In this context, Yeni Şafak published articles targeting Jews, with headlines such as ‘Why Don’t Jews Want the Turkish Population to Increase?’ There has been a period in which publications heavily criticizing Israel were produced without questioning its existence.”

She continued:

“The genocide attempt against Palestine affects Avlaremoz. Avlaremoz emphasizes the reality of genocide, and this has led to reactions within the community. It is clear that Avlaremoz has focused on the Holocaust for years. It is a tragedy toward which sensitivity remains very low in our country. Over time, Avlaremoz’s publications on anti-antisemitism have begun to attract attention.”

“Aras and Agos Established a Line of Remembrance”

Betül Bakırcı, editor-in-chief of Aras Publishing, also spoke about the importance of Armenian-language publishing.

“After 1915, cultural production was also ignored. Aras was founded in 1993, and Agos in 1996 under the leadership of Hrant Dink and Yetvart Tomasyan. There is a living language and culture. By writing in Armenian, Zaven Biberyan established a line of remembrance. Aras and Agos build that connection through literature and publishing.”

“Armenian Literature Makes the Invisible Visible”

Bakırcı stated that they present the works of Armenian writers and artists living in Turkey to readers:

“There are still books at Aras that continue to be widely read. Later, this publishing calendar expanded. Aras tried to make visible those who had been overlooked. After Biberyan, the books of Zabel Yesayan were published. Recently, we broadened our strategy and launched a series dedicated to Armenian women writers. We work with a very small team. Aras is a bilingual publishing house. We also attach great importance to children’s publications in Armenian language. Aras strives to produce high-quality publications. It has always been more than just a publishing house. It is a school and a tradition in itself. When I first came to Aras, this was what I saw. Books are published with great care, and it also serves as a school for editing. We are trying to maintain that as best we can.”

“If We Don’t Do It, That Work Will Not Exist”

Seçkin Erdi, publishing editor at istos, began by saying, “I reject the term ‘minority publishing.’” Stating that publishing has become increasingly difficult, Erdi said:

“We have a stance on forgotten books whose time has never come. We value the publication of a sentence, a poem, or a stance that otherwise would not find a place for itself. Aras, istos, and Avlaremoz occupy an important place in Turkey’s cultural climate. Because if we do not do it, that work will not exist. When they call us ‘minority publisher,’ we become part of racialization processes or their reproduction. Yet, at the same time, we are compelled to do this. Because we are trying to keep the societies, cultures, and beliefs that were destroyed alive today.”

Erdi noted that the existence of istos began in the aftermath of the murder of Hrant Dink, one of the founders of Agos newspaper:

“The light that enabled istos to establish itself was the existence of Aras. Aras’ presence gives strength to istos. We are publishers for the broader society, not ‘minority publishers’. The act of dissemination is not limited to books. We have a choir, workshops, a stage, and a dance group. Although we are commercial institutions, fortunately books open up new dialogues, and other spaces for dialogue emerge through istos. Our effort is directed toward keeping memory alive today and ensuring that new memories, new productions, and new steps toward the future can be heard. We want to see people who wish to take part in this cultural complexity and richness.”

Following the presentations, a question-and-answer session was held. During this section, participants discussed what it means to be “few” in the context of minority publishing. They asked the speakers about the importance of cultural production and how “smallness” could grow.

Betül Bakırcı stated that minority publishers would grow through solidarity:

“As long as producers and those who follow them are here today, we will continue somehow. Even when we are no longer here, someone else will surely take our place. This field will survive through continued production.”

Seçkin Erdi concluded with the message:

“If we stop, we fall. That is why we should not stop."

Prior to the election, on June 2, the "Turkey-Armenia Businesspeople Meeting" was hosted by the Kars Chamber of Commerce and Industry. The meeting was attended by Ayşe Uzer, Deputy Director General for the Caucasus at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Hayk Darbinyan, Advisor to the Armenian Minister of Foreign Affairs; and officials from the chambers of commerce of Kars, Erzurum, Iğdır, and Ardahan. While messages of normalization were delivered at the meeting, the parties emphasized that dialogue is crucial for strengthening hopes for a shared future. Soyak, who mentioned he could not attend the meeting but was involved in the initial process, stated that they are beginning to reap the fruits of the wholesale agricultural products project they conducted back in 2001.

Soyak continued: “In 2001, we did a project called the wholesale agricultural products market. We compared the agricultural products of Turkey's border regions with Armenia's border regions. We sought answers to the question of what grows there versus what grows here. We focused on the questions of who would sell their goods where and what each side needed if the mutual borders were to open. We traveled village by village, covering the entire Erzurum, Kars, Ardahan, and Iğdır regions, and the Gyumri and Lori regions in Armenia. We produced these results 25 years ago. Coming to the present day, those results are proving useful.”

“The Two Countries Lost 30 Years”

Soyak noted, “Armenia sees Turkey as its gateway to Europe. Turkey also sees Armenia as its gateway to Azerbaijan, the Caspian basin, and Central Asia. I believe these two mindsets will ultimately win out. The two countries lost 30 years. Their shared role is to establish a transit bridge between the East and the West.”

Stating that the Turkey-Armenia border gate should have been opened long ago but is waiting for certain hurdles to be cleared, Soyak said, “This needs to become a reality and reflect positively on the people of the region.”

Regarding Russia's pre-election restrictions on agricultural products imported from Armenia, Soyak offered the following commentary:

“The thought that relations with Russia would completely break off never crossed my mind. That is very difficult. It will find a balance. Major crises can happen between any countries, but then they get resolved. The same thing happened to us; tomatoes from Turkey were sent back by Russia. Things got tense all of a sudden, but then they improved. I am sure Russia will have a takeaway from the Trump Corridor project. A way will be found.”

Why did Armenian voters place their trust in Pashinyan? Ultimately, he understood - more than any other domestic politician - how to break from the past, move beyond the defeat and articulated a vision for the future. Rather than exhausting national energy on a lost cause for which Armenia lacks both resources and external allies, Pashinyan promised peace, to normalize relations with neighbouring Azerbaijan and Turkey, and effectively bring Armenia out of its 35 years of regional isolation.

The only other Armenian leader who tried to get a third mandate was Serge Sargsyan, who was immediately overthrown by a popular revolution in 2018. The irony is that Sargsyan had made constitutional “reforms” with limitless mandate so that he stays in power, and now it is the leader of the Velvet Revolution who is profiting from it.

Samvel Karapetyan a political novice, an oligarch with financial ties with Russia, received 23.2% of the votes. Former President Rober Kocharyan, whose “Armenia Alliance” includes ARF-Tashnagtsutyun, got 9.9% of the votes. Both opposition parties who entered the parliament have pro-Russian positions. It is surprising how the two opposition parties who promised better relations with Russia, while Russian politicians were blackmailing Armenia, blocking the import of fruits and vegetables, threatened to double the gas prices, got so many votes. Russian leaders are evidently angry and want to “punish” Armenia. They seem unable to grasp that the geopolitical situation has changed in the South Caucasus largely due to their policies, when Russia abandoned Armenian and Nagorno-Karabakh to be defeated by Azerbaijan-Turkey alliance in a series of wars between 2020 and 2023.

Nikol Pashinyan’s biggest challenger was not the pro-Russian opposition, but Nikol Pashinyan himself. While he understood the necessity of political change and was able to produce a new vision to stabilize Armenia after the series of wars and incoming refugees, often he went way too far. Instead of explaining the reasons of policy changes, he spent time and energy to develop a new “ideology” that he calls “Real Armenia”. In his efforts, Pashinyan is attempting to rewrite Armenian history, including that of the 1915 genocide, for which he has neither qualifications, nor a mandate. By his over-zealous attacks on symbols of Armenian nationalism and identity, Pashinyan is unnecessarily creating a legitimate space to oppose him on the ground of nationalism and identity. This topic is especially popular among the youth, urban, educated classes, who are sceptical about the capacity of Pashinyan to deliver what he is promising: security and prosperity.

The other problem of Pashinyan is his incapacity to control his tongue. He often aggressed Nagorno-Karabakh refugees, like a refugee woman he encountered in the metro, or war veterans, calling them “fugitives” who did not defend their land. Such populist discourses attacking refugees might earn him some votes among those who dislike refugees, but it can also cause deep distrust among educated classes.

The outcome of the 2026 parliamentary elections is a victory for Pashinyan, but not a total one. The opposition, by collecting a third of the votes, has the capacity to block major decisions, such as the constitutional reforms promised by Pashinyan. This is a good thing for Armenia’s parliamentary democracy: now ruling party and opposition need to talk to each other, negotiate, and find compromises. Will the opposition use this opportunity to help the country move beyond “with-us-or-against-us” type of polarization?

The constitutional reforms promised by Pashinyan are driven by foreign policy and security considerations, as Azerbaijan and Turkey are pushing for even more concessions: an Armenian constitution that is cleansed from any reference to Nagorno-Karabakh. Parallelly, Azerbaijan is continuing the destruction of remaining references to Armenian identity in Nagorno-Karabakh that it occupied during recent wars: churches, cemeteries, villages, and entire neighbourhoods of Stepanakert.

Now that the elections are finished, the next chapter of Armenia’s history will largely depend on what Turkey will do.  Ankara has two choices: either decide to take positive steps and open the closed borders and open Armenia’s routes to Europe, or continue its negative policies towards Armenia, maintain the blockade, and push Armenia once again back to the lap of Russia. Turkey already did that once in the first years of independence.

• Civil Contract Party: 49.81%
• Strong Armenia Alliance: 23.29%
• Armenia Alliance: 9.94%
• Prosperous Armenia Party: 3.996%

The ruling Civil Contract Party, having received 49.81% of the votes, secured a parliamentary majority and won the right to form the new government. While the Strong Armenia Alliance emerged as the main opposition force, the Armenia Alliance also surpassed the required threshold for parliamentary representation. The Prosperous Armenia Party narrowly failed to cross the 4% threshold required to enter parliament, finishing with 3.996%.

Based on initial data, three parties will enter the Armenian Parliament. The distribution of the 105 seats is as follows:

• Civil Contract Party-64 seats
• Strong Armenia Alliance-29 seats
• Armenia Alliance-12 seats

As for the additional seats legally reserved for representatives of Armenia's four largest national minorities, three of these seats were given to the highest-voting Civil Contract Party, and one additional seat was given to the Strong Armenia Alliance.

The Election Commission will announce the final official results after investigating all allegations of irregularities and reviewing any complaints or appeals.

Pashinyan: "The War Parties Have Lost"

Nikol Pashinyan, Prime Minister and leader of the Civil Contract Party, who declared victory in a press conference at 2:00 AM when only 10% of the votes had been opened, made a brief statement this morning at the Parliament, where he attended 2025 state budget discussions.

"The people of Armenia, with their votes, have defended the state, independence, the future, peace, and the Republic of Armenia," Pashinyan stated. Referring to opposition leaders Karapetyan, Kocharyan, and Tsarukyan, Pashinyan said, "The three-headed war party has been defeated," and continued:

"This is significant, but it is not the final result. I believe the people have clearly expressed their will that the three-headed war party and its accompanying criminal-oligarchic system must be eliminated from the Republic of Armenia. This will certainly be one of the most important agendas for the political majority and the government, and we must implement this without delay, with very determined and decisive steps."

Pashinyan concluded his speech by stating that the Civil Contract Party will "obtain a majority in parliament, form the government, and continue these discussions in the coming months."

According to data from the Central Electoral Commission of Armenia, 58.97% of voters went to the polls, with 1,476,597 voters casting their ballots. Experts note that activity in border regions may have driven the turnout rates up in the final hours.

The Central Electoral Commission, which announced that the voting process was completed without any issues across 2,005 polling stations established throughout Armenia (9 of which were in prisons), stated that the first unofficial results would begin arriving starting from midnight.

"Minor Tensions Reported"

According to data from Armenia's official news agency Armenpress and local media outlet Azatutyun (Radio Liberty Armenia), voter turnout remained remarkably high throughout the day, particularly in Yerevan and strategic regions along the border (Tavush and Syunik). Various sources in Armenia report that minor tensions occurred in some electoral districts between opposition blocs and ballot-box observers from the ruling Civil Contract Party due to allegations of irregularities; however, no incident large enough to disrupt the voting process was reported.

On the other hand, following reports of power outages at some polling stations after voting ended, Romanos Petrosyan, the Interim Head of the Electricity Networks of Armenia, stated that power had been restored to all affected locations and that there is currently uninterrupted electricity at all polling stations nationwide.

The official emphasized that voting has concluded across the country and all ballots have been placed in sealed ballot boxes. According to Petrosyan, approximately 2,000 employees are on standby and will intervene in any disruptions that may occur during the vote-counting process.

The company also noted that polling stations are equipped with flashlights and backup power sources, and that representatives of rival political parties are present alongside the sealed ballot boxes while the counting continues.

Additionally, the Investigation Committee announced that nine individuals were arrested today and 59 investigations were launched on charges of electoral violations.

"The Future of the Caucasus is in this Ballot Box"

The eyes of the international press were also on Yerevan. International agencies such as Reuters and the Associated Press (AP) announced the closing of the polls, emphasizing that "the election voting on the power struggle between Russia and the West in the South Caucasus has concluded." English-language sources point out that economic restriction measures coming from Moscow ahead of the election and border demarcation debates played a decisive role in voter behavior. International observers (OSCE) monitoring the region and the Armenian elections are closely following the transparent counting process of the votes now that the polls have closed.

Regional Balances Could Shift

International experts state that the outcome of the ballot box holds the power to radically change not only Armenia's domestic politics but also the ongoing peace talks with Azerbaijan, the normalization process with Turkey, and the entire alliance map of the South Caucasus. In the parliamentary elections where 18 political forces and alliances are competing, all eyes are now locked on the first official votes to be issued by the electoral boards.

Sarkis Khandanyan:

"Citizens have seen that the policy we pursue leads to peace"

Lusyen Kopar with Sarkis Khandanyan

Mr. Sarkis Khandanyan, do you ever find yourself thinking about what will happen if you don't win?

We have also spoken about this publicly with our citizens. We said that if the political forces currently representing the main opposition were to win, the conflict could reignite, and the probability of war would be very high. This is because these political forces have no idea how they will regulate relations with our neighbors.

For this reason, we have worked very hard to secure not just a victory for our party, but a victory for peace and for the independence of the Republic of Armenia.

When Russia restricted product purchases from Armenia, the European Union announced it would provide 50 million euros in support to Armenia. How do you evaluate this support?

This 50 million euros was provided under conditions where the EU acted very flexibly at a time when Russia shut off access for Armenian agricultural products, granting our producers and farmers the opportunity to export their products to European countries.

I believe this is a result of the foreign policy we pursue. This is because we said we would balance our relations and deepen our ties with different partners, and I think this will be appreciated by our citizens.

Many steps have been taken in the normalization process of Azerbaijan-Turkey-Armenia relations. If you lose, will this normalization process be disrupted?

The opposition forces give citizens no idea of how they will continue peace negotiations. They have no answers as to whether the normalization process between Armenia and Turkey will be maintained. In the event of their victory, there is a great uncertainty at best, and a continuation of the conflict at worst. We are not saying that everything depends solely on us, on our party, but citizens have seen that the policy we pursue leads to peace.

We are in the midst of the Armenia-Turkey normalization process. This will be the first time Armenians cast their votes during this process.

Citizens will also endorse all the policies we pursue: economy, health, social issues, and at the same time our foreign policy—hence our goal of having regulated and established diplomatic relations with Turkey. In this sense, an evaluation will truly be made regarding this process as well.

Let's touch upon the agreement signed during US Secretary of State Rubio's visit to Armenia. Do you interpret this as Trump supporting your party, meaning Pashinyan?

The President of the United States has already given support to Prime Minister Pashinyan. However, this is more of a support given to the Republic of Armenia and to the strategic relationship between Armenia and the US.

Maria Karapetyan: 

"Our primary promise is to preserve peace"

Lusyen Kopar with Maria Karapetyan

Ms. Maria Karapetyan, what did you promise at the rallies?

To preserve peace — meaning to sign and ratify the previously initialed peace treaty, to ratify the 'TRIPP' framework agreement, to build the railway and restore all of Armenia's railways, to continue building not only international but also domestic and inter-village roads, and to sustain the construction of schools and kindergartens. We have also added a new component: the next five years will be the 'Water Infrastructure Year' in Armenia.

This is a very crucial component. Armenia is a water-rich country, but we have major deficiencies in collecting and managing water, both in terms of agricultural irrigation and daily water usage. Focusing on water infrastructure in the next phase has become our main election promise.

Did you have dialogues with opposition citizens at the rallies?

Yes, of course, we encounter skeptical citizens: those who are not convinced. What they need is to experience a longer and lasting realization of the peace process; to see that this new formula—meaning relations based on the mutual recognition of borders with neighbors—actually works. People need time to believe in this. We also need to show tangible results to our opposition-leaning citizens. They need to be able to touch peace so that they can believe.

The primary indicator is the absence of soldier casualties at the border. In addition to this, there are infrastructures that are already open: wheat arrived from Kazakhstan and Russia through Azerbaijani territory, as well as via Georgia. Recently, Turkey also allowed the transportation of goods using the existing railway through Georgia.

But the most fundamental change will be the opening of the Turkish border: opening the current roads via Margara (Alican) and repairing the railway in the Akhuryan (Arpaçay) section. I am talking about the short Gyumri railway. These will be the most convincing arguments to show citizens that the new formula—establishing direct relations with neighbors without intermediaries—actually works.

It is said that Turkey and Azerbaijan want Pashinyan to continue in these elections. Isn't this a sensitive issue?

Yes, this is a sensitive topic. On the one hand, they support our government from many different sides. This is a good thing. It means that the Armenian government has established its relations with different countries around the world in such a way that it has become important to the world. On the other hand, there are accusations that this constitutes interference in our internal affairs. There are indeed moments when threats against Armenia are voiced.

On the flip side, within Armenia, there are political forces presenting our being in power as the reason for the deterioration of relations with other countries. We are aware of this context. Our proposal is this: despite everything, let's focus on what we will do, on the lessons we have learned, and let's make these decisions with an independent mindset. Let us decide what is good for us. If we get support from our partners, that's great, but let the interest of Armenia and the people of Armenia always be at the center.

You describe the opposition parties as the 'three-headed party of war.' Why?

Because they have the same political program, without a single word of difference. All three forces say, "Peace is not possible this way, guarantors are needed." All three say that the TRIPP agreement is not a good program and that something else needs to be considered; yet they do not unite.

Why don't they unite? Because they think that by participating in the elections separately, they can get more votes using their own networks and economic leverage; then they will combine these votes in parliament. We abolished the majoritarian election system, but they are trying to act with a majoritarian logic based on each being elected individually and then forming a coalition after the election.

We have said it clearly: if these forces govern Armenia, a war will break out and this entire peace agenda will be derailed. Because they are not the continuers of the direct, intermediary-free relations we have reached. They say they will officially sign the peace treaty because they know they won't get support if they tell the public they don't want it. But when you ask a few more questions, it turns out they will renegotiate the agreement; which is a direct way to sabotage the peace process.

Hasmik Hagopyan: 

"We will not create a new enemy for ourselves"

Hasmik Hagopyan

Trump supports Pashinyan, while Russia seems to be against you. What do you think about this?

We do not think at all that the Russian Federation is a country hostile to us. Think about it, we want to establish friendship and be neighbors with countries with which we have experienced decades of hostility; we will not create a new enemy for ourselves. We want to live peacefully in a sovereign way.

But in recent days, economic sanctions have been increasing significantly, and many describe this as an economic war. In the previous period, we also talked a lot about hybrid attacks and hybrid warfare. As for the economic war, we do not think the Russian Federation needs to launch any attack against Armenia, but its exact overlap with this election period cannot be a coincidence.

We believe that these are only temporary problems and will be resolved very quickly. This was, to a certain extent, an attempt to put pressure on the Armenian voter to make them choose pro-Russian forces. Putin also said in his meeting with our Prime Minister, 'There are pro-Russian forces in Armenia, let them participate due to their Russian passport.' I am not saying this in vain: there are pro-Russian forces, and they are the force that will receive the most votes after us.

In other words, the opposition's 'prime ministerial candidate' holds a Russian Federation passport, do you understand? His large capital is in the Russian Federation. It is as if they are guiding our citizens to choose the easy way and select the pro-Russian force. But I am sure this problem will be resolved in a short time. By the time this interview is read, the problems will have been solved. Because whichever government a country's people vote for, other countries have to work with that government.

What kind of result do you expect? Do you expect a majority that can change the constitution?

From the very beginning, we spoke of an absolute majority; the Prime Minister also stated that we do not have a problem like uniting with another force to form a government. We will win, but at one point we felt that having a constitutional majority was also very realistic. Right now, we are progressing on the path to reaching a constitutional majority, and all polls conducted by various reputable international organizations show that we have the prospect of holding a constitutional majority. Let's see, God knows.

We cannot form a coalition. Because all the forces claiming to enter parliament act outside of Civil Contract. Therefore, what commonality of values do we have with all these forces against us to form a coalition? On the other hand, our support shows us that a simple majority is not an issue. No problem for 51 percent. We are advancing on the path towards 65 percent, which is the constitutional majority.

You emphasize Armenia's current borders. Why do you find this necessary?

You know, we can be very strong, and we held a parade recently; everyone saw the weapons we possess. Our defense industry has developed, we export weapons, we sell what we produce to other countries—we have now become such a country. But against whom, and how strong? We are a small country, the population is small, the army is small, and our economy, for instance, cannot be compared with Turkey, the second strongest country in NATO.

If we remain within our legitimate borders, and if we have no territorial claims on any of the neighboring countries, why should there be a war?

We lay no claim to Western Armenia, nor to Javakhk in Georgia, nor to the Persian-speaking Armenian region in the Islamic Republic of Iran, nor to Karabakh in Azerbaijan. I have listed the territorial claims that the old governments voiced from time to time; they used to feed society with this. But recently, this issue has been talked about so much that our society understands and accepts the real borders of Armenia, making no claims beyond them.

We found the old man and Hüsamettin did the translation for us. He explained to him in Kurdish the story I was doing about my elders from Hazro who had settled in Kamishly. Hearing the word Kamishly, the old man became curious and asked my grandfather’s name. When I told him Khacho Araboğlu, his face beamed saying in excitement, “Ahh...Malbata Haço! Malbata Haço!”(the family of Khacho).  And he began telling that he knew Haço. After every few sentences, Hüsamettin would translate to me what the man was saying. Apparently, my grandfather’s and his family knew each other. Kurds and Armenians used to live together like brothers in those days. The two families were rich landowners and worked together.

I started feeling sentimental and excited because he had known my elders. Then the man continued saying that one day, Haço’s family had decided to move away from Hazro. Much later, news came that the Araboğlus had settled in Kamishly.  Many years later around 1964, this Kurdish man and his uncles planned to go for Haj. His father asked him to pass by Kamishly and give his greetings to Haço. So, on their way they stopped by, searched for and found my grandfather who was extremely happy to see these old friends. After a few days, they continued on their piligrimage journey. As Hüsamettin was translating this part of the story, it felt like a deja vu, and an uneasy feeling overtook me. His story sounded fake all of a sudden because I was familiar with the narrative but the intentions of the trip did not sound right.

Asdghig, a friend of our family had told me that in the mid 1960s she had witnessed the arrival of some Kurds from Hazro who were looking for Araboğlu Haço. Her family was from Diyarbekir and lived next to my grandparents in Kamishly…they were best friends. In her version of the story, I guess details filled in by her father, the guests were from a family that used to work for the Araboğlus in Hazro. When the events of 1915 take place and the clan is perished, save for my grandfather, the workers take over their vineyards and possessions. Within 50 years, they end up bankrupt. So, their elders convene and decide that maybe they can ask for financial assistance from Haço in Kamishly because they have heard that he and his sons are well off. That’s why they send their men to Kamishly. In Asdghig’s version, there is no pilgrimage story nor any friendship calls. It is strictly greediness.

What is impressive is the way my grandfather apparently reacts to these visitors from Hazro. When he finds out who they are and what they want, he is outraged. He is also so saddened that he takes out a bundle of money bills, forces it in their hands, and in tears he tells them to go away and never ever dare come back. His final words are something like this, “I lost my entire family, you took all our property, you ate up all our possessions and it was not enough, now you have come here begging me to help you? have you no shame…?” for a few days after they leave, my grandfather does not recover from his sadness. That’s what Asdghig told me. This photograph is from that morning we arrived in Hazro with Hüsamettin. The horror in the horse’s eye makes me think of my grandfather Khachadour.

So, you understand how the old man’s tale about the Haj and the friendship visit to my grandfather felt fake to me, having heard Asdghig’s recollections from that visit. As the man was talking and Hüsamettin was translating, all of a sudden my eyes filled with uncontrollable tears. An overwhelming sadness overtook me and I couldn’t help but tell Hüsamettin to stop the interview. Saying, “come on! We are going. This man is a liar!”, I left them there and went to the car. The realization that this was one of the men from Asdghig’s story sent shivers in my body. Truely, “It’s a small World”!!

According to a report by Hatem Polat of the Yeşil Iğdır newspaper, the Turkish side of the highway connecting the Alican Border Gate in Turkey with the Margara Border Gate in Armenia will be rebuilt as a dual carriageway along a 6-kilometer stretch, and the contractor has already begun construction work.

Highway crews have started road-widening and route-modification works aimed at improving transportation access. The planned ring road, which will begin at the Organized Industrial Zone and continue through the Hoşhaber, Halfeli, Erhacı, and Karakoyunlu route, will connect with the 6-kilometer Alican road. The ring road, which will link the Alican and Nakhchivan roads, is expected to significantly ease traffic congestion in Iğdır.

Cantürk Alagöz, a member of parliament from the ruling Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi-AKP) representing Iğdır, made the following statement to Yeşil Iğdır newspaper:

“In accordance with the plans by our Minister of Transport and Infrastructure, Abdulkadir Uraloğlu, and our General Directorate of Highways, construction of the Alican road has begun in order to reduce traffic density in our city and, in particular, prevent trucks and heavy vehicles from entering the city center. May it be beneficial for Iğdır.”

One of my earliest memories is tied to a song we sang in kindergarten. Yes, a song. A cheerful one, in fact. One of my favorite teachers, Oryort Araksi, greeted us every morning with her piano and the colorful yarn balls she had prepared herself. Accompanied by music, we were invited to move, skip, and delight in one another’s company. One of the songs she taught us went something like this:

“Where are you going, little girl?”
“I forbid it, I forbid it.”
“I am going to pick violets.”
“Don’t forbid it, don’t forbid it.”

I no longer remember the rest of the song. Even writing it down now sounds somewhat strange. But at the time, nothing about it felt strange to us. We were allowed to run and skip freely around the classroom while singing it, and we had so much fun. Years later, when the song returned to me, I realized that it had been a song of prohibition all along. What felt more unsettling was recognizing how prohibition had quietly settled into our small bodies through joy itself. As children, we did not question it. When prohibiting authority intertwined with love and play, it became harder to recognize, even easier to internalize.

Of course, tenderness was not absent from our lives. The care my mother and grandmother offered through nourishing meals, the warmth of home, and their protective presence shaped some of my earliest experiences of what safety could feel like. Love often appeared at the table: being well fed, kept warm, looked after, knowing someone was waiting for you. Looking back, I see this too as a language of protection.

Yet protection and connection were not always the same thing. Home often represented safety, while the streets felt more uncertain. Restrictions multiplied when it came to the outside world. Where we could go, when we had to return, and with whom we were allowed to spend time all became important. Curiously, however, schools and their surroundings continued to be imagined by many adults as safe spaces. And yet, years later, I came to realize that school corridors were not always safe either, that boundaries were rarely spoken about openly, and that I have to learn many things through my body. At home, there were no warnings that unwanted things might happen to us at school. Our teachers were to be respected and trusted without question. Yet over time, we learned through experience that schools, and even extracurricular educational spaces, did not always offer safety.

Like many women, I learned early on to scan my surroundings. To anticipate a glance, read the emotional atmosphere of a room, adapt before conflict emerged, avoid drawing attention, and please others. Protection was often learned at the expense of connection to the body. I became attuned less to what I felt than to what the world expected of me. Canadian physician and writer Gabor Maté suggests that chronic adaptation, the suppression of anger, and the tendency to prioritize the needs of others, particularly among women, can place a long-term burden on the body. He speaks not of a direct cause-and-effect relationship, but of a meaningful convergence worth attending to. When a person cannot say “no,” the body may begin to express what could not otherwise be spoken.

For our generation, saying “no” as children was nearly impossible. Expectations of our parents, teachers, and other authority figures were clear: we were to be compliant rather than disruptive. After all, we were both Armenian and girls. Who knows how many stories live within us of bodily boundaries being crossed, leaving a child feeling devalued and painfully permeable? We often think only of overtly violent interventions as violations of bodily integrity. Yet a meal forced upon a child, or a face compelled to smile, may be just as sufficient to quietly estrange a girl from her own body.

Writing this essay has reminded me that childhood continues to speak to us not only through memory, but through the body itself. Unnamed boundaries, unspoken fears, the pressure to be a “good girl,” the demand to adapt… Some things only become legible in retrospect. Feminist trauma theorist Judith Herman reminds us that experiences that cannot be spoken do not simply disappear. They return in other forms: in silence, in unexplained unease, in burdens carried by the body. When a story cannot be spoken, the body continues to speak.

Looking at my body through this lens again, I cannot help but wonder how I might care more tenderly for the porous boundaries shaped over the years. Though the quiet pedagogies of childhood have formed us, we also learn, over time, to enter into different relationships with our bodies, our boundaries, and our voices. How might we create spaces where protection can be learned not only through fear and prohibition, but also through trust, boundaries, and the capacity for connection? Beyond learning how to protect ourselves, perhaps what matters is learning how to live without losing the bond we hold with ourselves in the process.

The participants also welcomed the completion of the necessary administrative procedures in Turkey to enable direct trade with Armenia. As is known, under the new arrangement, even if cargo is transported through a third country in transit, shipping documents will be allowed to list “Armenia/Turkey” as the final destination or country of origin. The meeting also highlighted the importance of providing Armenian products with access to the Akhalkalaki–Kars railway line. Participants noted that this would create new opportunities for both bilateral and regional trade.

“An Issue for the Entire Region”

Kadir Bozan, President of the Kars Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said: “This issue concerns not only Kars, and not only Armenia, but the entire region. I believe that the business representatives present here will help create constructive public opinion on this matter and contribute to the process.”

Saim Özakalın, President of the Erzurum Chamber of Commerce and Industry and a member of the Board of Directors of the Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey (TOBB), stated that the meeting was not only a platform for bringing together members of the business community but also a very important opportunity to strengthen mutual trust, dialogue, and hopes for a shared future.

Hayk Darbinyan, Adviser to the Armenian Foreign Minister, said that the meeting had become possible thanks to the normalization process and the development of bilateral relations between Armenia and Turkey. He contiued: “Business people should also be prepared for the opening of the borders. I would like to thank you for hosting us here. I am confident that today’s meeting will first allow us to get to know one another better and will become the starting point for future agreements. I hope this will be a meeting that yields positive results.”

The meeting was also attended by Ayşe Uzer, Deputy Director General for the Caucasus and Central Asia at the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Uzer said that Turkey and Armenia were witnessing yet another important milestone at a historic juncture in their relations. She stated: “We have made substantial progress in the Turkey–Armenia normalization process. We have taken important steps in transportation, cultural cooperation, education, trade, diplomacy, and legal cooperation. Every step we have taken has brought our countries and peoples closer together. We have begun to experience the ability to trust one another again. In essence, that was precisely the purpose of this process—to establish mutual trust.”

(Armenpress, ANKA)

In previous weeks, I analyzed the poll results that had entered the public domain in detail and evaluated them from various perspectives. At the time of writing, based on the latest available data (at least for now), the least surprising aspect appears to be the polling results. The February and May 2026 surveys conducted by International Republican Institute (IRI), along with Armenian Election Study’s (ArmES) three-wave measurements, all point in the same direction.

Accordingly, support for Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s Civil Contract Party has risen by 8 points to 32%; the share of people who believe the country is moving in the right direction has increased from 47% to 61%; and satisfaction with the prime minister has jumped from 46% to 62%. What we are seeing is a gradual, systemic shift that has now been confirmed by two independent sources.Nevertheless, two major questions remain unresolved: the 44% “silent mass,” whose indecision has decreased but whose reluctance to express opinions has increased, and the TRIPP project, which has almost perfectly divided the electorate in half.

The polls show a structural advantage for the government. Yet, there are also some risks for the government. So why are voters moving toward the government despite pressure on so many fronts? The answer may lie precisely in how these pressures shape voters’ perception of risk. Let us examine these four fronts one by one.

Relations with Russia

The first—and perhaps the most important—front is relations with Russia. According to survey data collected by early May, the share of respondents who considered Russia Armenia’s most important partner fell from 43% to 35%, while those viewing Russia as a threat rose from 29% to 32%. Support for an exclusively pro-Russian orientation declined from 33% to 27%.

On May 29, the members of the Eurasian Economic Union (Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan), meeting in Astana, called on Armenia to hold a referendum “as soon as possible” on whether it preferred the European Union or the EAEU. Prime Minister Pashinyan had already skipped the summit, citing the election and campaign period. Moscow later imposed restrictions on various Armenian exports, including fruit, vegetables, and fish, and recalled its ambassador from Yerevan. Several senior Russian officials, including Putin, drew comparisons to a “Ukrainian scenario.” Although this situation might seem to strengthen the hand of the pro-Russian opposition during the election campaign, the gradual decline in support for Strong Armenia (from 9% to 6%) suggests that voters are not reacting to the Russian card as expected. Moscow’s pressure may be triggering national reflexes rather than fear.

The Cost of Leaving the EAEU

This balancing act between the EU and the EAEU is difficult for Armenia.The EAEU provides Armenia with access to the Russian market, inexpensive energy, and the free movement of labor. Remittances sent home by hundreds of thousands of Armenian citizens working in Russia constitute an important source of income for families in Armenia. A significant portion of Armenia’s agricultural exports also depends on the Russian market. Leaving the EAEU would mean work-permit requirements, risks to money transfers, and a lengthy process of redirecting exports toward European markets. Putin compared the issue to a marriage, effectively saying: “If you want a divorce, say so openly and demonstrate that the people support that decision.” Pashinyan and nearly all senior government officials have responded as softly as possible to such comments. They reject the marriage analogy and insist that Armenia maintains “very good relations” with Russia. They state that all relevant details have been discussed openly and honestly with their Russian counterparts and characterize existing problems as merely “technical.”

Putin’s marriage analogy is not entirely wrong, but it is incomplete. It resembles a relationship that has become toxic, in which one partner continually subjects the other to psychological pressure. The weaker party may wish to leave but lacks the economic independence necessary to do so. At this point, the EU could function as a kind of shelter, helping the abused partner. If that support materializes, the separation could occur far more quickly than expected.

Relations with the West

The second front concerns relations with the West—the EU and the United States. In May 2026, Yerevan hosted both the 8th European Political Community Summit and the first-ever EU-Armenia Summit. The EU pledged to deepen security and defense cooperation and announced €30 million in support through the European Peace Facility. Armenia also signed strategic partnership agreements with the United Kingdom, France, Croatia, and Bulgaria. On the U.S. side, statements by Trump were widely interpreted as expressing support for Pashinyan.The effects of this orientation are visible in polling data. Support for EU membership has reached 75%. In the ranking of Armenia’s “most important partner,” France surged from 27% to 39% and moved into first place. Meanwhile, the United States fell from 42% to 27%. This shift from the U.S. toward the EU may be linked to the timing of the surveys, which coincided with the summits held on May 4–5.

Border Tied to Another Country’s Calendar

The third front involves relations with Turkey. Developments on this front appear to be moving at two different speeds. At the state level, cautious diplomatic steps are being taken. Turkish Airlines has maintained scheduled Istanbul–Yerevan flights since March. On May 13, Turkey approved simplified customs procedures for the movement of goods through third countries. During the European Political Community Summit, an agreement was signed regarding the restoration of the historic Ani Bridge. The Kars Chamber of Commerce publicly called for the border to be opened, and a Turkey-Armenia Business Forum subsequently took place. In other words, people-to-people diplomacy is running ahead of state diplomacy. Yet the border remains closed. Azerbaijan’s ambassador to Ankara stated the conditions under which the border could be opened—a statement that drew criticism from some former Turkish ambassadors. Azerbaijan is demanding the removal of references in Armenia’s constitution that it interprets as claims to Nagorno-Karabakh, specifically references connected to the 1990 Declaration of Independence, and insists that these changes be approved by referendum. As a result, the Turkish border is effectively tied to a political timetable determined in another capital. And for now, the key to that lock appears to be missing.

Support for TRIPP, But…

The fourth and most complicated front concerns the signing of a permanent peace agreement with Azerbaijan. A draft agreement prepared in Washington was initialed on August 8, 2025, but has not yet been formally signed. The constitutional issue mentioned above, as well as disagreements over how the route connecting Azerbaijan to Nakhchivan should operate, remain the primary obstacles. Yerevan believes that the route issue has been resolved through its sovereignty-based “Crossroads of Peace” framework and through the U.S. promotion of the package under the TRIPP brand. However, the latest polling data show that society is almost perfectly divided on this issue. Support for the TRIPP project stands at 44%, while opposition is at 41%. The text of peace treaty may be ready, but the democratic consensus needed to sustain the signature afterward is not.

When all these fronts are considered together, the picture becomes clear: Armenia is trying to stop being an “all-or-nothing” country and become a “both-and” country. It seeks to avoid tying its security to a single actor, transform itself from a country of closed borders into a transit and connectivity hub, move beyond post-Soviet reflexes toward a more institutionalized state mindset, and accomplish all three goals simultaneously. If it succeeds, geography becomes an opportunity. If it fails, geography becomes a source of pressure that necessitates walking a thin line that demands extraordinary balance.

The vote cast on June 7 is ultimately a vote on this vision. The polls show Pashinyan holding a structural advantage, but that advantage stems less from enthusiastic support than from the perception that the opposition represents a greater risk. As noted before, the question “Who can govern better?” is gradually being replaced by “Which risk is more manageable?” The decisive factor will be how many members of the silent majority—those willing to tolerate and navigate this nearly impossible four-sided balancing act—actually turn out to vote.

 "1- In the implementation of the racial investigations conducted, pursuant to Directive (D-97), concerning those seeking admission to our Military Schools, it has been observed that the relevant authorities have failed to maintain the necessary confidentiality. Furthermore, when applicants who otherwise meet the admission requirements are rejected as a result of these racial investigations, they are reportedly being informed that the reason is that they are “not of the Turkish race.”

    2- This line of conduct is absolutely unacceptable, as it will leave a bad impression on various minority groups and lead to rumors that could disrupt our national unity. Therefore, I strictly request that all Civil and Military investigation and vetting authorities, from the police upward, conduct the necessary investigations with the utmost confidentiality and fairness. In the event that a negative response must ultimately be given by branches and schools to those who do not meet the entry requirements as a result of the race investigation, utmost care and diligence must be taken not to leave a bad impression on them by showing soft medical and administrative reasons—such as the school's capacity being full—and by not mentioning race. I respectfully submit and request that this instruction be circulated accordingly.

    3- For information, this has been submitted to the Prime Ministry and the General Staff; to the Ministry of the Interior (for transmission of the necessary orders to civil investigative authorities); and has been sent to Military District Commander units, the Inspectorate of Military High Schools, and the Command of the Military Academy.

In the upper-left corner of the document, dated June 4, 1942, there is a note reading: "DECLASSIFIED by APPROVAL dated July 10, 2025, and numbered 148317."

The document, coded D-97 and kept secret for 84 years, was brought to light by researcher Sait Çetinoğlu and Prof. Dr. Taner Akçam. We asked Prof. Dr. Taner Akçam about the historical significance of this directive for the history of Turkey.

In your article titled "The D-97 Directive," published on Medyascope on May 31, you uncovered an important document from 1942. This topic closely concerns the minorities in this country—or rather, the communities that have been marginalized into minorities. What is the Ministry of National Defense actually saying here?

The Minister of National Defense is saying: "We are admitting students to the Military Academies by conducting a 'RACE INVESTIGATION' in accordance with Directive D-97. However, do not tell the people we reject, 'You were not accepted because you are not of the Turkish race.' Tell lies, invent excuses." Here, we see a crucial characteristic of the Turkish Apartheid regime: its "secretive and insidious" nature. In my opinion, this "insidiousness" is the greatest problem. This is a regime that lacks the courage and honesty to defend its actions by saying, "Yes, we are doing this." Perhaps this is what distinguishes us most from South Africa and Israel.

This document not only officially reveals why minorities could not enter military schools; it also shows that authorities were instructed to invent alternative explanations. Yet both the state and minorities already knew the real reason. Why do you think the state felt the need for such “sensitivity”?

This is a very important question, and rather than giving an immediate answer, I prefer to reflect on it deeply. What comes to my mind is the "accumulated knowledge" built up especially since the 19th century. This knowledge created a mindset of "being aware of one's own weakness." Throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, during the collapse of the empire, Ottoman administrators accumulated significant experience. That experience dictated: "If we carry out our policies against minorities openly and publicly, it will draw the reaction of the West, and they will intervene." Even during periods of the greatest mass violence, meaning periods when the atrocities were happening right out in the open, the "fear of intervention" was paramount. They acted with extreme meticulousness to "prevent the West from finding an opportunity to intervene."

We know from the example of Abdulhamid II that he rejected the requests of Armenians who wanted to convert to Islam to escape massacres. He refused these requests saying, "The Westerners will say, 'You are forcing Armenians to change their religion,' and they will intervene." Instead, they could blame the massacres on local structures and the Armenians themselves under the pretext of "the government was trying to prevent the violence."

This culture continued into the Republic. As a result, a bizarre culture of being 'insidious' and 'shrewdly manipulative' emerged. We even began to perceive this 'slyness' and 'insidiousness' as being clever or intelligent. What I am describing is just one reason. Undoubtedly, there are other, more severe reasons. There cannot be a single explanation for these cultural codes, which I find highly troubling and problematic. We need to talk about them seriously.

As you mentioned in your article, years ago Agos newspaper revealed that the state secretly coded minority communities in this country using a "lineage code" (soy kodu). When we factor in this new document, what kind of picture emerges?

With the 1920s, a racist regime was established in Turkey. A culture and tradition emerged that viewed the collapse and disintegration of the Ottoman Empire as the work of Christians, thereby deeming Christians untrustworthy. The system was essentially built on ensuring that Ottoman Christian citizens were kept out if they were outside the borders and driven out if they were inside. I am not the one saying this. The Directorate of Population Administration under the Ministry of Internal Affairs stated this in a report it prepared in 1933. They explicitly said, "We are establishing a Republic based on the Turkish race." And they stated, "We enacted the 1927 Population Law in order to establish this race-based Republic." They eventually included Kurds and Alevis alongside Christians. Consequently, an Apartheid regime was established that did not consider a significant portion of its own citizens as equal.

But let us emphasize again: they did all of this secretly. They did it insidiously. Remember the response they gave to the information uncovered by Agos: "Yes, there was such a policy, but we ended it." What was it that being carried out? Which decree, which directive was it? Perhaps it was directive D-1. And then, what did you end? Where did you remove it? Where is the documentation for this? Where is the announcement in the Official Gazette? Everything is built upon a bizarre 'lie,' a bizarre self-deception, a bizarre phoniness... It is deeply saddening, deeply...

You will remember that there is currently only one Armenian district governor (kaymakam) in Turkey. How should we interpret his appointment? In other words, if D-97 had not existed, could many qualified young people like him have entered state institutions, or is it precisely because of D-97 that we are talking about just one person today?

If D-97 had not existed, there would be many high-ranking Armenian, Greek, Syriac, and Kurdish officers in the military today. D-97 is only related to the military. This implies that there are 97 other directives or decrees out there. Perhaps the number exceeds 100. We can infer that they control other professions in a similar fashion through these kinds of decrees.

If these decrees did not exist, there would be numerous prosecutors, judges, and high-ranking state bureaucrats from these backgrounds. The critical point is this: there is no system operating based purely on legal conventions! In other words, as 'hostility,' 'hatred,' and 'distrust' exist, certain groups may be blocked from certain positions due to 'mindsets' and 'habits' even when the law allows it. But in our case, it is the exact opposite. A legal system has been explicitly constructed via laws, directives, and official notices.

We can look at the example of the Armenian district governor more broadly. We know similar examples are frequently cited for Kurds. We often hear the phrase, "Turgut Özal [the eight president of Turkey between 1989-1993] was Kurdish." I think this should be labeled as a "showcase policy." In 16th-century Virginia, where slavery and racism formed the bedrock of the state, there were Black slave owners. Therefore, we need to drop this "showcase" debate and accept that the system operates on a racial foundation.

The phrase "it will leave a bad impression on various minority groups" appears in D-97. Who exactly is meant by minority here? For instance, although they do not fit the official definition of a minority, are Kurds, Alevis, etc., included in this?

The expression used in the document is “azlık” which can be translated into English as “small groups”. I added two letters in brackets and turned it into “azınlık” which means minority for easier understanding. What terribly saddens me is the phrase "will leave a bad impression." This shows they knew that what they were doing was wrong and indefensible. From the available documents, we can easily deduce that what they meant by 'small groups' also encompassed Kurds and Alevis as we possess official documents, albeit limited, covering the period between 1929 and 1933. They classified the country's population as Turks and non-Turks. They demanded that those who were non-Turks be specifically profiled and marked in the population registries. Furthermore, when looking at today's practices, we know that the term 'small groups' encompasses anyone outside of those who are Turkish and Sunni (Hanafi) Muslim.

Finally, shouldn't the current and past governments offer an explanation on this matter?

Absolutely, they can no longer say "we didn't know, we weren't aware." They know, and they are forced to take a stance! Otherwise, they will amount to nothing more than ordinary officials of a state organized on racial principles.

My kind, lovely grandfather Khachadour. They say he was a strict and harsh man. My mother also has told me many sad stories about how unjustly he had treated her the first few years after arriving as a new bride. But she also would tell about how respectful he had become with her as time passed. In fact, I think he must have loved her quite a bit because whenever he wanted to visit our house, he would say to my grandmother Verjin, ‘Let’s go to Markrid’s tonight’ and not ‘to Antranig’s’, his son. All I remember is this short old man, in a dark overcoat, a beret and a hitler-style moustache who never made any noise. I remember him just sitting at the desk in my uncle(amca) Hossep’s shop in the last years before we moved to Beirut. Like all retired fathers in the Middle East, he would come often to his son’s shop and watch how business was going. I remember him like that because for one whole summer I was an apprentice at my uncle’s shop.

Whenever I see a long-stemmed red rose, my grandfather comes to my mind. It is a memorable scene that I can not forget. I am maybe five or six years old and have just come for my lunch break to my grandparents’...their house was a couple of blocks closer to school than my home. Often I would go there instead of home. Everyone is in the courtyard and there is an older man whom I am seeing for the first time. He looks like a barber, with the white top he is wearing. My grandfather is standing there in a sparkling white shirt with his left sleeve rolled up, waiting next to the rose garden. He and the barber are chatting and laughing. Everyone looks like they are anticipating something dramatic with very serious faces. Then the man asks my grandfather if he is ready and my grandfather nods a “yes”. He extends his left arm towards the man, who takes out something metalic that looks like an oversized nail clipper from his pocket. With the clipper he cuts into a vein in my grandfather’s arm and crimson red blood starts gushing upwards from his arm, falling down on the ground and streaming into a sewer hole.

At that age I never understood the reason for that blood ceremony. I remember being told that my grandfather had too much blood in his body, when I had asked my grandmother. Only decades later my paternal aunt Bejo explained that it was actually a treatment for the high blood pressure that my grandfather had been suffering from when I was young.

I know that I witnessed the same procedure a second time months or a year later, but this first one has always stayed with me. What was remarkable about that were the visuals. From my height, my grandfather’s elbow looked as if it was resting on top of a red rose in the garden. The rose and the gushing blood were the same colour and it seemed as if that redness was flowing from the rose into my grandfather’s elbow, shooting upwards with a violence and then colouring the shiny surface of the ground, slowly heading towards the sewer hole. I was horrified by the blood streaming from my grandfather but I must confess that I was also mesmerized by the crimson redness coming out of his sparkly white shirt-sleeved arm. A memorable contrast of colours! Fortunate, I would say. How else would a child like me learn about peotic imagery?

Background of the dispute

Clergymen Corc Kasapoğlu and Niko Mavrakis, both clergies affiliated with the Greek Patriarchate, were elected by popular vote to the board of directors of the Samatya Hagia Analipsis Greek Orthodox Church Foundation in 2011. They submitted the election report to the General Directorate of Foundations (VGM) on December 16, 2011. However, on March 5, 2012, the VGM ruled that the official election certificate would only be issued if these two individuals were removed from the board, citing their status as clergymen.

The applicants filed a lawsuit to annul the VGM’s decision, pointing out that the 2008 Foundations Regulation does not mention "being a clergyman" among the restrictions for board membership. The defendant, VGM, demanded the dismissal of the case, arguing that under the Treaty of Lausanne, clergy are barred from holding political and administrative office.

When the judicial process yielded no results at lower courts, the applicants Kasapoğlu and Mavrakis, represented by their attorney Hülya Benlisoy, filed an individual application with the Constitutional Court (AYM) on October 24, 2019.

The Constitutional Court issued its ruling on September 18, 2024. The AYM stated:

"The applicants were unable to exercise their freedom of association due to this endless, contentious dispute, as the courts failed to make any determination regarding whether or not they could serve on the Board of Directors due to being clergymen."

Referencing Article 33 of the Constitution, the AYM ruled that the "freedom of association had been violated." The court ordered that each applicant must be paid 30,000 TL for nonpecuniary damages. It was unanimously decided to send copies of the ruling to the General Directorate of Foundations and the Ministry of Justice.

The ECHR decision

In its ruling delivered on Tuesday, May 26, the ECHR pointed out that the authorities failed to provide a valid legal basis for excluding the clergymen from executive boards of foundations, noting that there was "no clear, accessible, and predictable legal basis that could justify the interference."

The European Court of Human Rights ruled that Turkey violated the clergymen's right to freedom of association and breached provisions protecting religious freedom by preventing them from performing their duties within the institutions that manage the churches, schools, and other entities belonging to the Istanbul Greek Orthodox community.

The Court stated:

 "Pluralism is built on the genuine recognition of and respect for cultural, ethnic, and religious diversity, and the harmonious interaction between individuals and groups with different identities is essential for social cohesion."

Furthermore, the Court emphasized:

"...associations established specifically for the protection of cultural or spiritual heritage, the pursuit of social or economic goals, the teaching of a religion, or the defense of an ethnic or minority identity play a fundamental role in the functioning of a democratic society."

The ECHR ordered that each applicant be paid €2,000 (approximately $2,325) in compensation and ruled that Turkey must cover the legal costs.

According to a report by DW’s Turkish branch, the Stockholm-based "Judisk Kultur i Sverige" announced Osman Kavala as this year's recipient, stating that the founding director of the Anadolu Kültür association holds a respected position in Turkish civil society and cultural life.

The statement highlighted that Kavala's efforts in line with "common European ideals”, and his cultural activities have made significant contributions to "building bridges between societies and people."

Described as a "strong defender of universal humanism and democracy," the statement noted that Kavala was sentenced to life imprisonment in Turkey on April 25, 2022. It also pointed out that the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), in two separate rulings, found the accusations against the 68-year-old human rights activist to be groundless.

Last Year's Award Was Given to Zelensky

The award to be presented to Kavala is named after Gilel Storch, who lived between 1902 and 1983. Born in Latvia, Storch sought refuge in Sweden due to World War II and is remembered with great respect for his courage and efforts that saved numerous Jews from the Holocaust.

The Gilel Storch Award was first presented in 2018 to the former President of Germany, Joachim Gauck. Last year's recipient of the award was Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, while the year prior, British-Indian author Salman Rushdie was honored with the award.

You can write your story based on the following questions:

When and under what circumstances did you first hear the name Hrant Dink? Before getting to know him, what did his name evoke for you? Was there a moment when you came to know him more closely over time? Did this change something for you? Do you ever associate him with a decision you made in your life, a relationship you formed, or a particular way of behaving?

You can send your writings to kurumsal@agos.com.tr.

Contrary to what some in Turkey claim, Pashinyan has obviously not stopped calling the Armenian Genocide genocide. However—as Demircioğlu pointed out and as shown by the April 24 messages Pashinyan has published since 2022—there is an effort to lower the tone, soften the language, and avoid offending Turkey. Under current conditions, this effort is understandable to a certain extent. But where should the limits of this mentality be drawn?

Let me say from the outset that I find the route Pashinyan is trying to set for Armenia generally correct and reasonable. It is impossible for Armenia to get anywhere by fighting with its neighbors. What will make Armenia more prosperous is peace and the stability it brings. In this regard, it is also right for the Pashinyan administration to seek a lasting compromise with Turkey (and Azerbaijan). Since it is understandable for all parties to make certain concessions or abandon some of their goals in such peace processes, the Armenian government may also make some concessions on this or that issue for a lasting peace. Nevertheless, there must be a red line here—not only for the Armenian government or the Armenians in Armenia, but for every Armenian across the world who maintains even a slight connection to their Armenian identity: not to compromise on the nature of the genocide, and not to (re)produce discourses that may be exploited by denialism. Beyond being a matter of concrete policy, this is also a matter of honor.

In this regard, I believe that April 24 messages should have a specific framework. April 24 messages, especially of the people running the Armenian government, should emphasize the minimum and the essential, and limit themselves to that as much as possible. The essence of the matter is this: Armenians were collectively wiped out from their millennia-old homeland as victims of a systematic evil; they suffered losses that have never been and can never be compensated on various levels; they were socially, economically and culturally set back by the genocide to an incalculable degree; and whatever Armenia and Armenians all over the world are experiencing today, the biggest determining cause is the genocide.

Historical analyses beyond this may be true or false, but April 24 messages are not the appropriate opportunity to discuss historical arguments and counter-arguments. For example, the place to address the question of why/how the genocide happened should not be an April 24 message. For decades, Armenians and non-Armenians as well, in politics and academia, have been discussing these and similar questions and producing works. They will continue to debate and produce. This being the case, one cannot expect these questions to be answered in a one-page text, nor it is necessary to do so. For instance, in his latest statement, Pashinyan draws attention to the role of imperialism in the genocide. To put it in its simplest terms, of course the Great Powers played a negative role in the Armenian Genocide and they bear responsibility; but when you tell this without putting it into context, without explaining its background and aftermath—which is impossible to do in an April 24 message—you lean toward the decades old denialist theses, as if Western imperialism was the cause or the perpetrator of the genocide. There is no need to put forward these interpretations in an April 24 commemoration message just to look sympathetic to your current interlocutors in Turkey.

April 24 should be a day to remember the gravity of the genocide and the magnitude of the loss, a day to observe the necessary mourning; any word beyond this may cause the common denominator to be lost. Similarly, making the genocide commemoration day an occasion to gain advantage in current party rivalry or electoral campaigns, etc., is an attitude that must be avoided, as it weakens the unifying character of the genocide commemoration.

What I am saying does not mean getting stuck on the genocide, diving into a bottomless sea of melancholy and nostalgia, or using the genocide as an active tool in international politics (using the genocide as a political tool is not categorically illegitimate though; it depends on how you do it). Today, the genocide does not need to be the determinant of the direction Armenia will take, or a prerequisite for its relations with other countries—in fact, doing so might even be wrong. Therefore, policymakers or a government may choose not to prefer this way, but they cannot cast a shadow over the spiritual and moral importance of the genocide or the memory of the victims; they cannot present what was done to them as "reasonable" or as a "normal" consequence of the course of events or political choices of the actors of the time, especially of the victims themselves.

Speaking first, Dr. Aylin Koçunyan provided information about the emergence of regulations and constitutions during the Ottoman Empire period. Koçunyan said she first encountered the Armenian National Constitution while pursuing her master’s degree at Boğaziçi University. She noted that the millet system began to institutionalize in the 19th century and that the constitution was quite different from the system established after the conquest of Istanbul. In her presentation, Koçunyan explained that the discourse of equality that emerged with the French Revolution created a domino effect, leading to the promulgation of imperial edicts in the Ottoman Empire, and that all these developments laid the groundwork for the Armenian National Constitution.

Can an Umbrella Mechanism Be Established?

Attorney Setrak Davuthan spoke about organizational models in minority communities. Stressing that the Armenian National Constitution was an extremely successful text, Davuthan reminded attendees that the constitution granted Armenian community institutions legal personality. He explained that the spiritual and secular councils established by the constitution governed the community.

Davuthan noted that after the establishment of the Republic, until the 1960s, the constitution was used only for patriarchal elections, while the formation of councils became invalid. He emphasized that establishing an umbrella structure is essential for ensuring accountability among Armenian foundations and that the Armenian Patriarch of Turkey should take initiative.

Davuthan stated: “I believe we would all certainly agree that there is a strong need for an institution with enforcement power that could unite such foundations around common goals and principles; identify deficiencies in administrative and rational continuity; regulate the transfer of voluntary donations to relevant foundations; ensure the structuring of systems; determine the real estate inventory; help revenues reach an economic level appropriate to present-day conditions; oversee the adequacy of individual budgets; and identify rational measures.”

He continued: “The structure we need should solve the financial sufficiency problems of educational institutions, safeguard the rights and benefits of employees and clergy involved in education and religious services, strive to prevent erosion in education and language, establish ethical rules, and also provide internal supervision and coordination among dispersed community foundations while being equipped with legal authority.”

“How Will Consensus Be Achieved?”

Among the conference participants, Community Foundations Representative Can Ustabaşı commented on Davuthan’s proposal for an umbrella organization: “The Directorate General of Foundations has the authority to inspect 167 community foundations. The number of community foundations inspected in the last five years has been very low. If we want inspections, there is no obstacle to this. It can be done by reaching an agreement with an auditing firm. However, I still do not fully understand what the umbrella organization would do. How would this organization organize and allocate responsibilities? Clergy and civilians have different opinions. How will consensus be achieved?”

Ustabaşı also proposed: “Instead of constantly saying ‘this or that should be done’, let us put our wishes and demands into writing and submit them to the relevant authorities.”

“We Are Not Trying to Create a New Constitution”

In his closing remarks, Patriarch Maşalyan said: “We are not trying to create a new constitution. Small modifications matter. Our greatest expectation is from our state. Our biggest problem is the issue of organization. Traditionally, the Patriarch is the head of the community, but he has no authority. This authority existed during the Ottoman period. Later, it was taken away from us. I have been at the Patriarchate for 43 years. We visited Ankara and returned empty-handed for years. The constitution succeeded because it created a collective wisdom that clergy alone could not achieve. It was not an act of disrespect toward the Church. It put things in order. It is fortunate that this constitution existed. I commemorate those who created it. Revolutions took place. We are not striving for a new constitution. Small revisions are important.”

“Rıfat Bali writes: ‘We, the Jews, chose invisibility in order to survive.’

And added the following words:

"In this region, thousands, even millions of people are living by choosing invisibility.”

Everyday Discrimination

The stories of daily life shared by the panelists clearly demonstrated what this “forced invisibility” actually entails. The questions like “Are you Turkish?” encountered everywhere from university hallways to public transportation, and the new attitudes adopted when one’s Armenian identity is revealed, laid bare the silent exhaustion accumulating within individuals. Nare Dink noted that the sudden shift in people’s tone of voice and gaze when she shared her identity, particularly in academic settings, is the most palpable form of everyday discrimination.

Panelist Vartan Estukyan, meanwhile, explained this situation in terms of a choice to “hold back” and “avoid exerting effort.” Sharing that he uses the name “Can” to avoid having his name mispronounced at any coffee chain or to prevent potential questions about his identity, Estukyan touched on the historical significance of this name within the Armenian community in Turkey. Recalling that boys were often given second names like “Şahin” or “Can”—names that didn’t sound foreign—to help them avoid difficulties during military service, Estukyan paid tribute to Sevag (Şahin) Balıkçı, who lost his life on April 24, saying, “Unfortunately, this name could not protect him.” 

Hopeful aspects

The panel discussed not only the hardships but also the hopeful aspects of identity. These were stories of identity transforming from merely a “battlefield” into a source of joy. Nare Dink, who initially viewed this identity solely as the harsh battlefield into which she was born, described her encounter with the dance and music of her peers at a summer camp as a turning point. The panelist shared how she discovered that the vibrant side of Armenian identity could actually be easily integrated into life and that this constitutes a cultural richness.

Social pressure faced by young people from families that had converted to Islam—or were forced to convert—as they sought their roots was also among the panel’s key topics. Şant Demirçivi explained that his connection to his Armenian identity had grown increasingly stronger as he became more familiar with the culture and experienced that sense of pride. Noting that the time he spent in Armenia played the biggest role in this transformation, Demirçivi said that he experienced his own culture more fully there and began to hear his language more often. He emphasized that, in contrast to the silence and hesitation in Turkey, witnessing the fearless actions and creative processes in Armenia made him realize that this was exactly what his culture was all about.

 The panel concluded with a resolute determination reflecting the young people’s will to break this historical silence by claiming ownership of their own stories.

“Arame Art Gallery,” representing Armenia as a gallery, was one of the focal points for visitors. At the fair, we met with Aram Sarksyan, the founder of Arame Art Gallery, and painter Tigran Matulyan.

Mr. Aram Sarksyan, as the founder of “Arame Art Gallery,” I’d like to start by asking you a few questions. Could you tell us about your gallery? How many branches do you have?

Aram Sarksyan: “Arame Art Gallery” was founded in Armenia in 2003. We have two galleries in Yerevan; both are located right in the city center. Our gallery in Lebanon also has two branches. Our gallery’s primary goal is to bring Armenian artists to an international platform, to an international stage. Everyone in Armenia knows the artists whose works are exhibited here; however, the issue is that we want these talented artists to be recognized outside of Armenia as well. For this reason, we participate in festivals and international exhibitions around the world. 

Is this your first time in Istanbul?

A.S: I had previously visited Istanbul twice to get to know the city, explore the art scene, and understand its unique qualities through “Contemporary Istanbul.” This is my third visit to Istanbul, and we are now participating in “ArtContact Istanbul,” the 6th International Contemporary Art Fair. I should mention that we also participated in the fair held at “Art Ankara” two months ago.

How did Istanbul make you feel?

A.S: Istanbul is a city with a rich history. It has a community. Seeing that Armenians live and work here moved us deeply. We visited the Surp Pırgiç Armenian Hospital; it was beautiful. All of this feels very close to us. We take pride in the fact that such a history exists in Istanbul.

How did you come to participate in “Art Ankara”?

A.S: At the beginning of the year, we participated in “Art Cairo” as “Arame Art Gallery.” There, a very distinguished gentleman approached us; Bilgin Aygül. We realized this person was the founder of “Art Ankara,” and he was deeply moved by our art. He spoke very highly of our artists’ works and invited us to participate in “Art Ankara.” 

How many artists’ works did you take to Ankara, and how many artists’ works did you bring to Istanbul?

A.S: We took the works of nine artists to Ankara. We also brought 44 works by nine artists to Istanbul. Today, works by Ruben Grigoryan, Vahagn Harutyunyan, Arthur Sarafyan, Tigran Matulyan, Igor Pron, Avetis Khachaturyan, Aram Hakobyan, Marat Markarian, and Sarkis Hamalbashyan were exhibited in Istanbul. However, as “Arame Art Gallery,” we work with approximately 40 artists. In this exhibition, we presented figurative art. Tigran Matulyan is a veteran painter and an artist whose works are exhibited at the Armenian Museum of Contemporary Art.

Lebanon is going through tough times. You opened an exhibition there right in the midst of this.

A.S. I’ve been traveling to Beirut for 30 years; I’m used to the bombs by now. The bombs didn’t stop, but we opened the gallery anyway. There are 70 galleries in Beirut, but we’re the only one open. We wanted to showcase an artist; it was Albert Hakobyan’s solo exhibition, and it went well.

Did your gallery sustain damage in the major explosion in Lebanon?

A.S. Yes, there was significant damage. About 40 paintings were damaged. I think God is looking favorably upon Matulyan; his paintings weren’t damaged.

Mr. Matulyan, how did you prepare for the exhibition?

T.M: I participated in “ArtContact Istanbul” with six of my works. To finish my last two pieces in time for this exhibition, I worked day and night for a month and a half. I spent about 15 hours a day painting. Some truly beautiful works emerged. I could say I created the best works of the past six months specifically to bring them to Istanbul. The reason was that I really wanted to see all of you.

We find ourselves immersed in a world of color in your paintings. What can you tell us about these colorful, multi-layered works?

T.M: I can use a lot of colors, but only a few may be visible. This is called “color scheme” in painting; it’s purely a technical matter. That’s not important. What matters is this: We hung the painting, everyone came and stared at my painting for hours. My paintings are layered, and completely different things have been drawn underneath. Hieroglyphs have been drawn—you search for them within the painting so you can find them. I’ve done mosaic works.

The women in your paintings—how should I put it—are always a bit plump. Why is that?

T.M: I’m multiplying beauty. The women in my paintings aren’t real people. They’re drawn within an ornamental world. I held an exhibition in Yerevan titled “Ornamental Dream.” Let me give a concrete example: when you go to the riverbank, there are small pebbles, but no one says, “These are beautiful.” But if we suddenly see an ornament, a decorative motif on them, that stone immediately goes to a museum. Do you know why? Because it’s now history. Ornament—that is, decoration—is a symbol of goodness and beauty.

The screams visited her late at night, as she crawled into bed, seeking rest.

Whenever she ate spicy food, she said it reminded her of the enemy, how it burned.

 Everyday chores could spark a memory that would shoot like a comet to the forefront of her consciousness. She would freeze while peeling potatoes or folding laundry, suddenly back there, in a moment of terror.

For the survivor generation, the past was present in an oppressive, literal way. Like millions of others, my great grandmother carried her grief until the very end, her only consolation being that those of us who came after would never forget.

I adopted the weight of this history the way one might inherit their nose shape or eye color. The stories became part of my genetics, absorbed, second nature. 

Unlike my nene, born in a small town between Adana and Marash, I came of age within the sleepy landscape of suburban Los Angeles. Minivans lumbered down wide, manicured boulevards, ferrying children from school to art classes to little league games. Indoor malls were the nucleus of our social lives, places that offered everything we needed to eat, shop, and be entertained before piling back into our cars.

While so much of America looks like this, my hometown was exceptional in two ways––as a bastion of multi-culturalism and the epicenter of the global Armenian diaspora. Armenians from all over the world made homes in this city––a diverse tapestry that reflected the larger character of Los Angeles––and on April 24, we would come together.

On this somber day, businesses shuttered, parents took their children out of school, and all of us flooded the streets to demand justice. Fueled by a cocktail of anger and sorrow, we longed to take our ancestors’ stories out of the darkness.

The struggle for recognition became a fixture of life in the Armenian American diaspora, for which Los Angeles was the capital. While this cause unified us––a layered, multiply displaced population––it also kept us behind.  

So suffocated we became by our own history, we forgot to tell our story in the present. Markers of Armenian culture became relics, suspended in time, to be venerated and preserved. For a child three generations removed from catastrophe, fighting against the tides of assimilation, the past can only offer so much in the present.

I craved more, a place where Armenian-ness was not just an ephemeral experience or hyphenated title, but a tangible, daily reality.

This impulse drove me to the Republic of Armenia, the symbolic homeland of all Armenians, a fertile soil in which to plant my identity. Despite the profound sense of belonging I developed in Armenia, my own roots lie outside its borders. One day, I resolved to visit the state that my ancestors were expelled from more than a century ago. 

I found myself in Istanbul

Which is how I found myself in Istanbul in June 2025––to meet the ones who stayed.  

Before my departure, my diasporan friends and family warned me with grave expressions:

“Don’t speak Armenian in the street.” 

 “Make sure you trust the person you are meeting with before revealing your name.”

 “Remove Armenian symbols from your body.”

So much was my discomfort, I touched down in Istanbul airport feeling like a fugitive or spy, whose cover could be blown at any moment.

Behind the immigration officer’s heavy eyelids, the same detached gaze I had observed in bureaucrats at border crossings around the world, I looked for signs that he might know I didn’t belong. I tucked my necklace underneath my shirt, the one I never take off, which contains an evil eye, my first initial in Armenian script, and a charm of Tatik Papik, the national monument of Artsakh, gifted to me by friends who lost everything there.

Despite my initial unease, the city enchanted me the way it has for so many––its rolling hills, glittering seascape, and colorful neighborhoods where entire civilizations seemed to come together. Istanbul vibrates on its own frequency, and the Armenian community is an integral part of this symphony.

Supported by funding from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and accompanied by photographer Alexis Pazoumian, I structured my reporting around one question: What does it mean to be an Armenian in Turkey today? I spent hours lost in conversation, absorbing details of my subjects’ lives the way I had taken in my great grandmother’s stories years ago.

Like my own community, the Armenians of Istanbul are not a monolith. I interviewed people of myriad ages and professions: prominent intellectuals and Turkophone artisans of the Grand Bazaar, political activists and members of an artistically daring theatre group, even a chef.

Although Armenian spaces often presented themselves discreetly, behind unmarked doors or at the end of narrow alleyways, once inside, a vibrant world revealed itself. In Istanbul, the Western Armenian language remains vital and longstanding traditions take new forms.

 While Armenians of the diaspora tend to regard Turkey as a place where we once were, visiting Istanbul shattered that narrative. Loss is undoubtedly a central theme of the Armenian experience, but this community also rests on an equally important legacy of continuous presence.

Informed by the words of Hrant Dink, I named my project The Ones Who Stayed to capture the enduring spirit of an indigenous people. This title guided my approach to the rich archive of photography and interviews that Alexis and I left with. On April 30, after nearly one year of preparation, we unveiled our work in Los Angeles with an exhibition of the same name.

In Armenian, the moniker stood even taller: մենք հոս ենք. This firm declaration of place––“we are here”––connected to the essential question that the show posed: If we centered presence rather than absence, vitality over erasure, how would we see ourselves?   

Hundreds of people gathered for the debut, overwhelming me with their genuine curiosity about Armenian life in a country associated almost exclusively with dispossession and erasure for those of us in diaspora.

 To continue building the project in real time, we invited guests to complete cards with the following prompt: «մենք հոս ենք» ի՞նչ կը նշանակէ ձեզի համար: or “What does ‘we are here’ mean to you?”

The sober warnings I had received in preparation for my travel were replaced with expressions of awe and solidarity. Attendees reflected an openness to overcome diasporic baggage associated with present-day Turkey, and to transform the possibilities for those of us who trace our origins to the land.

I dedicated the exhibition to my great grandparents, Ovsanna and Krikor, whose story instilled in me the desire to return. Looking back, I imagine that my nene would have wanted us not only to remember, but to create something new on top of all that tragedy. The Armenians of Istanbul showed me that doing so is possible, despite unimaginable loss. They stayed, and with their presence, they represent a piece of all of us.  

 (This project was supported by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation’s արդ եւս / in view Western Armenian Culture Grant Program. The exhibition was presented by the USC Dornsife Institute of Armenian Studies, with additional fiscal sponsorship by Los Angeles City Council District 13. The debut event was co-sponsored by the Organization of Istanbul Armenians in Los Angeles.

Maral Tavitian is a journalist from Los Angeles and Managing Director of the USC Dornsife Institute of Armenian Studies)

During the talk, Valoma described how an interdisciplinary artistic journey led her back to her ancestors’ villages in the Kharpert region and toward the hidden narratives stitched into her grandmother’s textile archive. What remained with me most strongly was not only the archival richness of her work but also the embodied quality of her encounter with inheritance. At one point during her visit to her grandmother’s ancestral land, she described feeling an urge to sit down. Almost instinctively, her hands reached into her bag, took out her crochet work, and began stitching. There was no grand performance in this gesture. No declaration. Just hands moving. A silent conversation unfolding across generations. In that moment, the land itself seemed to hold memory. Her grandmother Elizabeth was absent, long gone, yet strangely present through gesture, rhythm, repetition, and touch.

Later in our conversation, Valoma spoke about the importance of responsive making rather than reactive making. Not creating directly from the shock of trauma itself, but from a quieter relationship to presence, continuity, and return. I remember asking her afterward what the crochet piece looked like. She laughed softly and replied: “Oh, just a mess.” Yet perhaps that is precisely the point. Not mastery. Not perfection. But embodied connection. A hand responding before language fully catches up.

This sensibility quietly runs throughout the Armenian Needlelace Initiative. The archive does not treat lacework as a decorative artifact alone, but as a material carrier of displacement, labor, migration, grief, and survival. Photographs, essays, family histories, lace patterns, oral narratives, and poetry exist alongside one another, allowing Armenian needlelace to emerge not simply as craft, but as lived history.

One story from the archive especially stayed with me. Valoma recounts discovering three cotton collars trimmed with Armenian needlelace, wrapped carefully in a handkerchief inside her grandmother’s cedar chest. Attached was a note explaining that the collars had been sent by her cousin Satinig from Kharpert shortly before the deportations and before Satinig died on the road to Aleppo. Years later, a fourth collar emerged, carrying the penciled words: “This belongs to Sarra.”

Such tiny objects. Yet entire worlds survive inside them. Satinig’s hands touched these threads before her death. Decades later, Valoma touches the same fabric. Textile becomes encounter. Material becomes witness.

Throughout the archive, poetry accompanies these fragments. Elise Youssoufian’s final stanza from “Let the Candle Keep Burning” seems to capture the spirit of the project itself:

Pull the thread and it will sing
No shortcuts to the moment of making
Let all its light and shadow dance
Your path lit by a small, solitary candle
Each step on fertile ground, nothing more or less

These are not simply poems about lace. They are poems about transmission, about the fragile continuity carried through gesture, touch, and making.

In many silenced homes shaped by rupture and displacement, it is often women who are left to gather fragments, hold incomplete narratives, and thread interrupted stories together again. The work is never fully finished. Perhaps that is why needlework becomes such a powerful metaphor here. Stitch by stitch, memory remains in motion.

The Armenian Needlelace Initiative asks for a particular kind of attention. It is not a website one quickly scrolls through. One enters not only a textile archive, but a space where collars, stitches, handwritten notes, photographs, poetry, and family histories continue speaking across generations. In these delicate acts of stitching and keeping, some pasts remain unfinished, yet still capable of being held, touched, and carried forward with care.

80 detentions

The Contemporary Lawyers' Association (ÇHD) Istanbul Branch announced that as of 10:50 AM, the total number of detentions in Istanbul had reached approximately 80 people.

Police intervened with tear gas against members of the Workers' Party of Turkey and the Crimson Party (Kızıl Parti) who started marching toward the police barricade in Mecidiyeköy.

Started since the night before

In accordance with the ban decision taken by the Istanbul Governor's Office for May 1st, Taksim Square was surrounded. While all critical transportation networks, especially the M2 metro line, were disabled, thousands of police barriers were placed on the city's main arteries.

Some roads were closed to traffic within the scope of the May 1st circular published by the Istanbul Governor's Office. Vehicle and pedestrian passage is not permitted on roads leading to Taksim Square in particular, as well as on some roads in Beyoğlu, Şişli, Beşiktaş, Kadıköy, and Kartal. Police teams are directing citizens who want to use Taksim Square to alternative routes.

Services will not be operated at Taksim, Şişhane, and Osmanbey metro stops of the M2 Yenikapı-Seyrantepe-Hacıosman metro line (including all entry and exit points).

While only the Square exit of the Mecidiyeköy Metro Station was kept open, the Kabataş-Taksim Square Funicular line services and the Nostalgic tram services on Istiklal Avenue were stopped.

Services will not be organized at the Funicular line between Tünel Square and Karaköy, and at the Taksim, Tarlabaşı, Ömer Hayyam, and Tepebaşı IETT bus stops (on both sides, including the directions toward Şişli and Fatih).

Services were also stopped on the T3 Kadıköy-Moda Tram Line.

The Istanbul Governor's Office had reported that DİSK, KESK, TMMOB, and TTB would celebrate at Kadıköy Rıhtım Square between 10:00 AM and 5:00 PM, and TKP would celebrate at Kartal Square between 12:00 PM and 7:00 PM on May 1st.

Updating

Members of the Athens team, Mike, Anaïs, and Reverend Vicken Cholakian, had already been in the region for a week, working on the digitization of Armenian communal materials preserved in various cities of Western Thrace. These included, in particular, refugee registers compiled by local Armenian community councils from the 1920s onward, containing detailed information on newly arrived individuals. There were also minutes of council meetings, correspondence, often dating back to the nineteenth century, and archives of other Armenian organizations, including charitable, athletic, cultural, and educational associations. In addition, lists of Armenians who emigrated to Soviet Armenia in the 1940s, along with related correspondence, were also found.

Most of these materials are housed in Armenian church archives in Alexandroupoli, Kavala, Xanthi, and Komotini. These archives are not preserved under optimal conditions, which explains why the British Library’s program is aptly titled “Endangered Archives.” Our presence in these locations aimed to digitize these materials in order to prevent their deterioration or disappearance and to ensure their preservation in digital form.

My task, together with Ani from Athens, was to conduct interviews with Armenian families living in the region, digitize historical materials in their possession, including photographs, documents, and memorabilia, and trace their family trajectories. Many of these stories date back to the time before the mass arrival of Armenian refugees in Greece after 1922.

Thus, in Alexandroupoli I meet Lucy Sarkissian. She feels a slight apprehension when she learns that I will conduct the interview in Armenian. Lucy’s father is Armenian and her mother Greek, but it quickly becomes clear that she can express herself in Armenian with considerable ease.

Lucy’s ancestors came from villages in Mush and arrived in Alexandroupoli in the 1870s, when the city was still in its early stages of development, at a time when it formed part of the Ottoman Empire and was known as Dedeagach. At first, only men from Mush came, working as laborers on the railway line that passed through the city. It is believed that these migrants from Mush were among the first Armenians to settle there, and their traces remain visible to this day. The Armenian church is called Surp Garabed, founded in 1875 in memory of the famous Surp Garabed monastery of Mush. For decades, the local Armenian school, Daronian, operated next to the church, named after the Daron region, the homeland of the people of Mush. Lucy vividly recalls expressions in the Mush dialect that she heard within her family, such as ch’m kina (“I do not know”) and ch’m ouzi (“I do not want”).

Alexandroupoli was our first stop. In the days that followed, our team visited Xanthi, Orestiada, Didymoteicho, and Komotini. In each of these places, we met Armenian families and conducted interviews with them. Throughout Western Thrace, one has the sense of being in a place quite different from the Greece of seas, islands, and ubiquitous tourists. The region feels more like a continuation of the Balkans, and despite the wars and conflicts of the past century, its population remains diverse. The Christian Bulgarians and the Jews have disappeared entirely, but alongside the Greek Orthodox population there still live Turks, Pomaks (Muslim Bulgarians), and Muslim Roma. Mosques are a common presence in both urban and rural landscapes. Armenians, too, are part of this mosaic, and it was for them that our team had come to Western Thrace.

Akis Dagazian was born in Komotini and now lives in Thessaloniki. He is deeply familiar with the history of his family and of the Armenians of Komotini. “Until 1912, Komotini, then known as Gümülcine, and all of Western Thrace formed part of the Ottoman Empire. The city’s last Ottoman governor was the Armenian Mgrdich Efendi Tabakian, a well-known tobacco merchant. The family’s shop still exists today, and on its façade there remains an Armenian inscription from that time bearing the name Hagop Tabakian,” Akis explains. In 1912, following the First Balkan War, the region passed under Bulgarian rule. It was only in 1920 that Komotini and the surrounding area were incorporated into Greece.

There is evidence of Armenian communal life in Komotini from the mid-eighteenth century onward. The Armenian church, Surp Krikor Lusavorich, was built in 1834 and is located in the area historically known as the “Armenian quarter.” Akis notes that, at one time, all Armenians lived in this neighborhood. The current street names still bear witness to the former Armenian presence in this part of the city, including Ioannou Tsimiski (John Tzimiskes), the Byzantine emperor of Armenian origin; Leoforos Armeniou (Armenian Street); and Rupen Kevorkian, a member of the Komotini administrative council who, in 1920, played a decisive role through his vote in the efforts to attach the region to Greece. Komotini is also home to the current spiritual pastor of the Armenian Church of Western Thrace, Fr. Daniel Kaloghlian, who belongs to the Catholicosate of the Great House of Cilicia. It was in the hall adjacent to the Komotini church that, over nearly two weeks, the team from Athens was hosted, while the community council provided optimal conditions for the digitization of the archival materials collected in Western Thrace, amounting to approximately 7,000 pages.

Akis points out that today only two Armenian families remain in this historic Armenian quarter of Komotini. Armenian communal life here, and in Western Thrace more generally, was at its most vibrant in the 1920s and 1930s. It suffered its heaviest blow in the years following the Second World War. Between 1941 and 1944, Western Thrace once again came under Bulgarian rule, as Bulgaria was an ally of Nazi Germany. These were difficult years, during which the Jewish population was entirely deported, and the new authorities compelled inhabitants to renounce Greek citizenship and adopt Bulgarian citizenship instead. Bulgarian became the official language of the region, among other changes. None of this passed without consequence. When the Bulgarians withdrew and the Greek authorities returned, acts of revenge followed immediately. In such conditions, vulnerable minorities became the first targets, and Armenians were among them. Trials were launched against Armenians, often based on unfounded accusations, and various forms of pressure were exerted upon them.

Kohar Kurkjian (née Nazarian), from Xanthi, recounts that during those years her aunt Araksi was also imprisoned for six months on similar false accusations. This oppressive atmosphere became one of the main causes of Armenian emigration from Western Thrace. Many left for France, the United States, and Latin America, but the majority migrated to Soviet Armenia, following the “repatriation” campaign launched by the Soviet authorities after the Second World War. Zabel Papazian, from Orestiada, recalls that her family had also planned to leave for Soviet Armenia. Everything was ready, and only the sale of their properties remained. Zabel’s father had two brothers, one of whom had also decided to emigrate. However, the third brother, who remained in Orestiada, opposed the sale and refused to allow the family’s properties to be sold to outsiders, while he himself lacked the means to purchase them. As a result of this disagreement, all three brothers ultimately remained in Orestiada.

Yet many did leave during those years. The mass emigration of Armenians from Western Thrace led to the closure of Armenian schools and the gradual fading of what had once been a vibrant communal life.

Unexpectedly, however, these communities experienced a new turn. About fifty years later, in the early 1990s, Armenian migrants began arriving from Armenia and other former Soviet republics. They brought renewed vitality, and communal life gradually revived. In this sense, those years marked the beginning of a new chapter in the Armenian life of Western Thrace.

A striking example of the coexistence of old and new community life was our team’s visit to Didymoteicho, known in Armenian sources as Dimotika. We were at the border with Turkey; to the east flowed the Maritsa River (Evros in Greek, Meriç in Turkish), forming a natural frontier. In the distance, one could see the massive barriers erected in recent years along the Greek border to prevent the passage of refugees. In Didymoteicho, on a hill, stands the Armenian church of Surp Kevork. There we met Zabel, Sonia, and Boris, an Armenian migrant from Russia who in recent years has become the devoted caretaker of the church. As we were taking leave, Zabel said to us: “Do not forget us; we too are an Armenian community here.”

On our way back, Mike had the wonderful idea of organizing an annual group trip from Athens to this region. Participants would visit the places we had explored, experience the beauty of Western Thrace, and become acquainted with both its past and present Armenian life.

(This article was originally published in English on Armenian Weekly on April 7.)

Those who believed that things would improve simply with time, without perpetrators taking responsibility or reckoning with the consequences of their actions, should now understand that time that is not dedicated to transformation does not heal anything.

The Epstein criminal network is one of the most significant proofs of how colonial violence—long ignored—organizes and reproduces itself over time.

When the Parrhesia Collective began its first social media posts in 2021, it organized a year-long series of readings, discussions, and webinars on Zaven Biberyan. On the occasion of the author’s centenary, we read and discussed his works extensively. In Biberyan’s novel The Lonely Ones, he tells the story of a young woman who, as a child, is placed as a foster child with a large family and who cannot even claim her own name. We do not know her family background, and there is no explicit marker identifying her as Armenian, yet Biberyan is clearly telling the story of tens of thousands of Armenian women and children.

In The Lonely Ones,  written in 1959, Biberyan depicts a social reality in its most violent form—one he knew intimately. As the details of the Epstein files continue to emerge and survivors begin to speak, the importance of the novel as a literary work becomes ever more evident.

What is the connection between Frantz Fanon and Zaven Biberyan? Both were among the most critical intellectuals of their time, producing perhaps the most important works in their respective fields, yet they shared the fate of being marginalized, misunderstood and even criminalized in their own lifetimes.

One died of bone cancer born of suffering; the other died after a life marked by illness and poverty.

Biberyan’s novels in a sense, are breaking the spell. He draws attention to the home as a site of instability, to the family as a potentially dark and violent space. How did Biberyan come to understand colonial order as something that first targets the family itself? How is it that in his work relatives, siblings, parents, and children often appear not as sources of support but as agents of hostility?

The answer lies in the lived experience of Armenians in the nineteenth century. Ottoman policies that deliberately separated Armenians living in kavar (provinces) and in Istanbul, and turned large Armenian families against one another, and that rendered local leadership structures ineffective, produced dynamics whose twentieth-century manifestations Biberyan understood deeply.

In other words, both Fanon and Biberyan, drawing on direct historical experience and intellectual inheritance, placed before humanity some of the darkest realities of the modern world. The primary reason they continue to be ignored is that there is no willingness to listen to, transform, or take responsibility for the realities they expose.

Because in the temporality  of whites, the native  and the Black do not exist at all.

During one of our weekly Parrhesia Collective meetings, a philosophy student expressed fatigue with repeatedly reading Heidegger and engaging with Heidegger scholarship. In response, others noted how widely the assumption of Heidegger’s importance still circulates in academic circles.

And of course, one question echoed in all our minds: how is it that a “philosopher” burdened by a Nazi sympathy—white, male, European—continues to exert influence across geographies and generations, while Fanon, whose claims are empirically grounded and historically demonstrable, remains difficult to teach in Europe?

The answer, I would argue, is this: Fanon’s difficulty lies precisely in the fact that he directly exposes the destructive effects of colonial order on the colonized subject—and in doing so, he directly confronts Epstein and his equivalents. For this reason, capitalism targets Fanon as “Black,” that is, through the most explicit form of racism.

To this list we could add Karl Marx, Rosa Luxemburg, Silvia Federici and others. As thinkers who expose capitalism at its most vulnerable point, they too have been subjected to processes of criminalization.

Although all these thinkers have illuminated central questions of centuries-old structures of domination, none of them have become standard readings within the Western academy.

We might not have understood or learned this perspective had we not been taught by Harry Harootunian. The fact that Harootunian—descended from an Armenian family from Harput—is one of the most important living Marxian historians is not incidental.

The point is this: what has been written about colonial violence, its organization, and its consequences is not new. Nothing improves simply with time. On the contrary, those who control the time of patriarchy continue to deny the labor and intellectual production of thinkers named here and many more unnamed, forcing all of us into conformity with patriarchal temporality.

The Epstein revelations have created a significant rupture in the time of patriarchy—because this time, the fire has reached the world of whiteness itself.

Baydzar Toroslar, who had been facing health issues for approximately three years, will be honored with a funeral service on Thursday, April 9, at the St. Vartanantz Armenian Church in New Jersey. The ceremony will begin at 11:00 AM local time. Condolences will be accepted on Wednesday, April 8, between 4:00 PM and 8:00 PM local time at the Joseph Z. Konopka Funeral Home (9046 Palisade Ave, North Bergen, NJ, 07047).

Ferman Toroslar was born in 1936 in the village of Kerho, in the Mutki district of Bitlis. In 1938, as part of the Settlement Law (İskân Kanunu), he was exiled with his family to the village of Kızıltepe in the Osmancık district of Çorum. Due to this forced relocation, the family lived a life of exile under harsh conditions for many years before finally being settled in Kurtalan, Siirt.

Sent to Istanbul in 1954 to find work, Ferman Toroslar later married and settled in Diyarbakır. It was 1959 when the entire family eventually migrated to Istanbul. Throughout his life, Ferman Toroslar worked various jobs, including shepherding, street vending, and shopkeeping, to persevere. The family permanently settled in the United States 14 years ago.

As Agos, we express our deepest condolences and wish patience to the Toroslar family.

(See also: Ferman Toroslar’s ‘Exile’: The Story of All the Marginalized – Karin Karakaşlı)

The geopolitical threshold at which Armenia currently finds itself — the regional uncertainty created by the ongoing war in Iran, a new field of vulnerability stretching from energy corridors to border security — makes such an argument both plausible and effective. It would be easy, but incomplete, to dismiss the use of "fear" — the most primal, most destabilizing and electorally fastest-acting emotion upon which politics can be built — as nothing more than a self-preservation tactic.

In terms of political realities, the government's claim contains a substantial and legitimate kernel of truth. In recent years, Armenia's government entered a painful yet real process of normalization with Azerbaijan and Turkey, signed off on border delimitation efforts, and attempted to build a new status quo around Western-backed visions such as the "Peace Crossroads" and/or TRIPP (Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity). All these processes may be incomplete, contested, or uncomfortable for many. But the question the government poses: what happens if the status quo is dismantled? The answer to that question is clearly not merely diplomatic tension, but a direct security risk.

The reversal of international agreements, the non-recognition of border accords, or the re-introduction of maximalist demands can be assessed as steps capable of producing military consequences within the existing balance of power. The government's claim that "demands to revise the agreements would trigger war" is therefore not entirely without foundation. Of course, it is possible to argue that the current peace line concedes too much, to insist that the process lacks transparency, or to claim that national interests have not been adequately protected. The warning of war may even be politically instrumentalized — but it is not a fear manufactured from nothing. Yet the question that follows these criticisms, whose answer remains unclear: what, then, is the alternative?

Opposition blocs representing the old regime and traditional nationalist codes in particular argue that this "war" threat is being wielded as a tool of blackmail to conceal the government's domestic failures, corruption, and weaknesses in foreign policy — and they openly declare that, upon coming to power, they will roll back these concessions, demand revisions to the agreements reached, and refuse to recognize the border accords.

Can the opposition elites, who claim to possess statecraft, truly fail to foresee that tearing up existing agreements upon taking power would likely lead to war? One must assume that Armenia's opposition is well aware that a reversal of current gains would unleash a storm in the Caucasus and that a potential war could threaten the very existence of the state. Yet, much like many populist oppositions around the world that collide with the bare realities of governance upon reaching power, it is far more likely they would declare: "We inherited the state in this condition; continuity in international agreements is paramount; we have no choice but to stay the course" and end up defending the very peace environment and normalization currently pursued by Pashinyan.

If they would sustain this peace process upon coming to power, why do they not — or cannot they — honestly admit this to voters and offer a more reasonable alternative? Because they are held hostage by their own base's rage. The sole fuel keeping the traditional opposition alive today is the illusion of "revenge and honor" forged from the trauma, anger, and nationalist nostalgia born of the defeat in Karabakh. That is why they are compelled to say "we will cancel the agreements" even knowing it to be impossible. The political cost of honesty, otherwise, is high enough to eliminate their very reason for existence.

As was evident in the analyses we published in recent weeks, the determining factor in Armenian elections is not party vote shares alone. More decisive is the degree of trust voters place in the political system and how that trust translates at the ballot box. The high proportion of undecided voters, the size of the electorate saying, "I trust no politician" and the uncertainty around turnout all emerge as factors capable of directly shaping the election outcome. It is precisely at this point that the war in Iran can produce a powerful psychological multiplier effect before the elections. A conflict continuing just across the border can dramatically alter risk perceptions and entirely suppress voters' appetite for risk. Under normal circumstances, economic hardship, inflation, or governance failures might shape electoral behavior but in an environment where the possibility of war is felt, these concerns can recede to the background, and the voter's priority may shift from better governance to survival.

Today in Armenia, the election has therefore evolved from a question of political change into a massive exercise in risk assessment, and voters will choose not between alternatives but between probabilities. In this context, the ruling party's security-based discourse becomes not merely a campaign strategy but a frame that speaks directly to the current psychology of the electorate.

The opposition's most fundamental problem is not its inability to refute the ruling party's language of "fear" but its failure to construct a more credible security narrative to replace it. As long as it cannot offer or provide a convincing answer to voters a "warless, bloodless, and honest alternative", it may be able to grow its vote share, but winning the election looks difficult.

One thing is worth remembering: elections run on anger — but fear tends to decide outcomes. Unless something larger reshapes the landscape before June 2026, the result will ultimately be determined by which of these two emotions carries more weight.

Lebanon is facing a new war, while the wounds of the previous one have yet to heal. In the course of about three weeks, more than one million people have been displaced, in other words, about 20 percent of the population, with many displaced for a second, even third or fourth time. More than 1,200 deaths and 3,500 injuries have been recorded, including members of medical staff, journalists, rescue workers, and humanitarian workers. Infrastructure has been destroyed, including hospitals, schools, bridges, and water and electricity supply systems. Some of the displaced are in shelters, while the rest are with acquaintances, in rented apartments, or on the street. 

Israel is primarily brutally bombing southern Lebanon, the southern suburbs of Beirut, and the Bekaa region in the north. The remaining areas endure the insecurity sown by the war, collateral damage from targeted attacks, fear of resource depletion, distress from Israeli jets breaking the sound barrier, unemployment, and psychological distress. 

In the absence of internal unity, the country's social life is in as much disarray as its political disagreements. Naturally, all humanitarian organizations across Lebanon are fully engaged in supplying aid to the citizens housed in shelters, yet the voices of those segments of Lebanese society who consider the country's entanglement in the Israel–United States versus Iran war as a blow to the country in itself are loud.

I follow the country's internal divisions and try to alternate between detaching myself from daily life and empathizing with the victims. A few nights ago, for the first time in my life, I experienced the "fight, flight, freeze" response when an Israeli fighter jet flew quite low for hours, abruptly jolting me from sleep. I found my body frozen, unable to move, curled up like a hedgehog. Only my brain and ears were working, and even they were focused solely on gauging how close the jet was to us. I don't remember falling back asleep, but the memory of my helplessness and being nailed in place is etched into my mind like a tattoo. Until that moment, "flight" had been my dominant response. The habit of fleeing to "safer" places, such as a shelter or a corridor, seems to have been passed down through my genes from my parents, who lived through the 1975–1990 war. Because of that, my reaction to every bombing or sonic boom would automatically send me to a corridor. But that night, my fear and uncertainty felt different; my desire to survive was unusually intense.

Yet amid it all, the spirit of fight/resistance remains, not as a reaction, but as a principle: to fight against/resist the hegemonic and colonialist agendas imposed on us.

It all started when the Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTÜK) imposed an administrative fine and a 5-time broadcast suspension on the program Açık Gazete and Açık Radyo due to a guest using the term "Armenian Genocide" in the program on April 24, 2024.

Following the fine and suspension penalties, RTÜK canceled Açık Radyo's broadcast license on the grounds that it did not implement the broadcast suspension decision. Let's make a note here: The Açık Radyo team, who paid the administrative fines, stated that they could not access the attachment containing the broadcast suspension dates in the board decisions notified electronically by RTÜK due to technical reasons. During this process, radio lawyers asked RTÜK officials when the broadcast suspension dates would be notified, and received the answer that "the information was in the attachment of the notification and the dates had already passed." In their application on July 2, 2024, RTÜK was informed that the relevant attachment could not be opened and therefore the dates were unknown, and a new date was requested from the institution in writing. However, RTÜK did not respond to the application and canceled the radio's license on the grounds that the broadcast suspension measures were not complied with. Consequently, Açık Radyo's terrestrial broadcasts were stopped by RTÜK on October 16, 2024. The radio began its internet broadcasts on November 8.

Following these events, the legal struggle continues both for the resumption of Açık Radyo's broadcasts and on the basis of freedom of expression.

Ömer Madra: This process is a blatant injustice

After nearly two years, Açık Radyo and its legal team organized a press and public meeting to share developments regarding the ongoing judicial process with the public. At the meeting held on Tuesday, March 31 (today) at Tütün Deposu (Tobacco Warehouse), the radio's co-founder and editor-in-chief Ömer Madra, broadcast coordinator İlksen Mavituna, and Açık Radyo lawyers Ümit Altaş and Erdem Türkekul made statements regarding the process and answered questions.

Ömer Madra began his speech with the words, "We are in one of the most terrifying periods of modern history on earth. The world is in a great crisis; we are in a mud pit where we are submerged up to our throats." Describing the process as "a blatant injustice and a wall we face" while explaining the legal struggle waged by Açık Radyo, Madra used the following expressions:

"For the last year and a half, we have been quietly trying to express this 'blatant' injustice. However, despite all the in-depth legal opinions, all the technical expert reports, all the legal precedents, and all the evidence we have presented, the only answer we get in the lawsuits is the sentence 'In accordance with the law,' which is built in front of us like a wall. To say it as an allusion to the great poet Tevfik Fikret: 'In the name of the law, the law was trampled upon...'

Throughout the case, we tried to address important points regarding freedom of expression, the right to receive news, the right to access news, and the duty to report news. By the very nature of independent broadcasting, neither Açık Radyo nor any other media organization subjects its guests or programmers to a self-censorship mechanism. Penalizing a broadcasting organization over the pronunciation of certain concepts is a common problem not only for Açık Radyo but for all serious media organs and organizations in Turkey, and poses an extremely serious problem for the freedom of broadcasting in the country."

"You cannot say 'Armenian Genocide' on the radio"

Following Madra, lawyer Ümit Altaş took the floor. Altaş began by saying, "Mr. Ömer gave the simplest summary of this struggle we have been waging for two years with the concepts of 'blatant' and 'wall.' We are faced with a blatant injustice; despite all our statements, there is constantly a wall in front of us," and then explained the legal process.

Altaş stated that the lawsuits filed by Açık Radyo were rejected. He conveyed that in the court's reasoning, the individual use of the term "Armenian Genocide" was considered within the scope of freedom of expression, but the same expression was not seen within this scope in a radio broadcast:

"On June 14, 2024, we filed a cancellation lawsuit in the Ankara 21st Administrative Court. In our petition, we demonstrated that the expressions in question were within the scope of freedom of expression; and that imposing a penalty due to the words of a guest participating in a live broadcast, without evaluating the purpose of providing news, was unlawful.

We relied on the precedents of the Constitutional Court, the Council of State, and the ECHR, as well as academic opinions. However, we were faced with a wall again. The court rejected the lawsuit. In the reasoning, it was stated that the expression 'genocide' could disturb a section of society. What is even more striking is this: It was said that if this expression is spoken individually, it can be considered freedom of expression, but when a radio broadcast is in question, it cannot be evaluated within this scope. In other words, the court adopted an approach that restricts freedom of expression based on the medium.

The court played the role of the academy without making any statement regarding the determination of 'historical reality,' and did not provide any explanation as to how the expressions 'referred to as genocide' and 'Armenian genocide commemoration' used by our guest could 'provoke the public to hatred and hostility and create feelings of hatred,' nor how it posed a clear and present danger.

Our detailed appeal against the rejection decision was rejected by the Ankara Regional Administrative Court's 10th Administrative Law Chamber with only a single-sentence justification: 'The decision is in accordance with procedure and law, and there is no reason requiring its reversal.' Finally, on February 20, 2026, a cassation appeal was filed with a request for a stay of execution and a hearing. The file is under review at the Council of State."

"This is a struggle for freedom of expression"

"In this process that has been going on for nearly two years, the heaviest administrative sanctions were applied to our radio by picking out words out of context, without evaluating the whole and the purpose of the program, due to an expression used by a guest participating in a live news broadcast, which is clearly within the scope of freedom of expression according to both established national and supranational jurisprudence. The activities of a broadcasting organization were completely stopped in an unfair manner with a disproportionate and unmeasured intervention, without evaluating the petitions, evidence, and statements we submitted.

This picture is not just an action against our institution; it is a serious violation of freedom of expression, press freedom, and the principle of the rule of law. Our legal struggle continues before the Council of State. Our goal in this process is to defend not only the rights of our institution but also freedom of expression, the freedom and right to receive and provide news, which should apply to everyone."

A Christian living in Sukaylabiyah who did not want to be named for security reasons provided the following information regarding the incident to SyriacPress: “The incident began when two individuals arriving on motorcycles from the settlement named Qalaat al-Madiq harassed Christian women on Al-Meshwar Street in the city. This situation led to a clash between the attackers and local youth. It was stated that one of the attackers threatened those around him by showing a hand grenade and then fled the scene. The attackers, who later returned accompanied by security patrols, pointed out the youth, leading to the detention of several young men.

Afterwards, an unidentified large armed group entered the city and opened fire, threatened the public with death, attacked shops and passing vehicles, and forced shopkeepers to close their businesses. Some members of the group attempted to enter homes. According to witnesses, all of these events took place right before the eyes of the security forces. The security forces did not make any intervention to stop the incidents or arrest the attackers.

Four youth detained

By midnight, security forces had still not brought the situation under control and had not closed the roads leading to Sukaylabiyah. Order could only be partially restored with the arrival of reinforcements from surrounding areas, especially the Karnaz and Hemto countryside. However, instead of the attackers, security forces detained four youth from Sukaylabiyah. Between approximately 1:00 AM and 3:30 AM, the townspeople held a sit-in, and as a result of this action, the four detained individuals were released.

Another source speaking to SyriacPress stated that reports of a reconciliation being achieved between Sukaylabiyah and Qalaat al-Madiq are not true. The same source stated that to show their anger and dissatisfaction, the townspeople declared a three-day general strike and that shops would be kept closed. The source also emphasized that many people were severely injured as a result of the attack and that this was not an isolated incident. It was stated that similar incidents have occurred in Sukaylabiyah over the past 10 days, and that these attacks came not only from Qalaat al-Madiq but also from other surrounding areas.

It was also shared that attacks targeting some businesses and the townspeople are continuing, though no loss of life has occurred in the attacks.

Attack protested

On Saturday, March 28, the residents of the predominantly Christian town protested the attack. To express the public anger felt against the silence of the church in the face of systematized attacks targeting Christians in Syria and to reject the reconciliation reports, the crowd carried banners and shouted slogans such as "No to a single-colored army," "We demand that the security forces involved in the incident be held accountable and demand compensation for property damage," and "No to the desecration of holy places." The crowd later held a march.

Patriarchs held a meeting

Patriarchs in Syria:
“We condemn what occurred in Al-Suqaylibiyah and pray for peace and stability in Syria”

Damascus, March 29, 2026

His Beatitude John X, Patriarch of Antioch and All the East of the Greek Orthodox Church;
His Holiness Mor Ignatius Aphrem II, Patriarch of… pic.twitter.com/WFRTGzZnbr

— Mor Aphrem II (@MorAphremII) March 29, 2026

Reactions to the attack came from non-governmental organizations, political parties, and many sectors. Christian patriarchs in Syria also held a meeting regarding the matter and published a written statement on their X account. The following statements were used in the announcement: “Patriarch John X of the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch and All the East, Patriarch Mor Ignatius Aphrem II of the Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch and All the East, and Patriarch Youssef Absi of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church of Antioch and All the East gathered at the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate in Damascus.

The meeting was dedicated to reviewing recent developments. In particular, the incidents in the city of Sukaylabiyah in the Hama countryside, the situation in Syria in general, and the situation of Christians in particular were addressed. The Patriarchs addressed the challenges facing Syria with deep concern and a strong sense of responsibility. They stated that these challenges threaten coexistence between Muslim and Christian citizens in the country. They emphasized the importance of preventing the spread of uncontrolled weapons to protect security and stability and to guarantee the dignity of all citizens without exception. They stated that this must be carried out on the basis of principles of citizenship, equality in rights and duties, and respect for both individual and public freedoms.

On the occasion of the upcoming religious holidays, the Patriarchs conveyed their blessings and congratulations to their communities; they instructed that celebrations be limited only to prayers held in churches. The Patriarchs also prayed for peace for Syria, Lebanon, and the whole world.”

Statement from the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs

According to news from the Hibya News Agency, the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that they are following the developments in the city of Sukaylabiyah, where predominantly Greek Orthodox live in Syria, with concern. In its statement, the ministry drew attention to the investigation launched by the Syrian government regarding the incidents occurring in the city and demanded that the process be rapidly implemented.

Greece reiterated its call for a peaceful and inclusive transition process in which the rights of all Syrians will be protected without regard to religious or ethnic origin. The statement also emphasized that Christians are a historical and inseparable part of Syrian society. Stating that they are ready to support Syria's recovery process, Greece expressed that they will await the investigation results.

"Reflects an alarming escalation in the approach to violence"

In the statement made by the Universal Syriac Union Party (USUP) in Lebanon, it was stated that the attacks “reflect an alarming escalation in the approach to violence targeting Christians and all minorities in Syria, bearing traces of an exclusionary ideology similar to ISIS.” Emphasizing that what happened “cannot be considered separately from the chain of repeated attacks against regions with a distinct Christian identity,” USUP drew attention to the “clear absence of accountability.”

The statement also criticized impunity for the attackers, stating that the continuation of these violations without a real deterrent “poses the risk of a dangerous drift into sectarian conflict and threatens the remainder of Syria's social fabric based on pluralism and coexistence.” USUP called for urgent and effective protection under international supervision for Christians and all minorities in Syria. The party also demanded that transparent and independent investigations be conducted regarding the incidents in Sukaylabiyah and other attacks, and emphasized that everyone involved in the incident must be held accountable.

The party called on the Syrian authorities to assume their responsibilities to protect citizens and to end all kinds of negligence or possible cooperation. Finally, USUP stated, “The silence of the international community is no longer acceptable; the failure to take real steps means indirect complicity in these crimes.”

The winner of the election will sit in the presidential chair for three years. The ballot paper for Alen Bağ and his list was red, while the ballot paper for Hraç Keçiyolu and his list was yellow.

Before the voting process, Alen Bağ and Hraç Keçiyolu shared their final messages with the members.

Keçiyolu stated that they were only able to fully take over the disputed land of the Taksim Sports Club in 2023, and attributed the inability to make significant moves until this date to this uncertainty.

Alen Bağ, on the other hand, stated that the occupational rent (ecrimisil) debt regarding the land in question reached 10.5 million TL with interest, and said that they would pay this debt if elected.

The club has been facing an occupational rent (ecrimisil) debt due to the ownership problem of the Süleyman Seba Facilities, which it has used for years. In a letter sent to Taksim Sports Club from the Istanbul Governor's Office in 2011, it was stated that the area was under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of National Education and that the club was an occupier. The club management dealt with intense bureaucratic procedures for many years to obtain the usage rights of the facility. In 2023, the jurisdiction of the club land was transferred to the Ministry of Youth and Sports, and the usage rights were given to Taksim Sports Club. However, the occupational rent (ecrimisil) debt arising from the ownership of the land is putting a heavy strain on the club.

Garo Hamamcıoğlu, who took the floor after the candidates' speeches, rejected the criticism that the occupational rent debt was swept under the rug and gave examples of the bureaucratic work they had carried out.

More than 500 members were expected to vote in the election, but 384 members cast their votes.

The speeches ended around 6:45 PM, but due to the chaos in the voting system, members could not cast their votes for a long time, and a stampede occurred in front of the ballot box.

Order was restored after the intervention of security forces, and the voting process began around 7:15 PM.

Voting ended around 9:00 PM, and the counting of votes began. At around 9:45 PM, the counting of votes ended.

Alen Bağ became the new president of the club with 223 votes. Hraç Keçiyolu received 161 votes. Keçiyolu congratulated Bağ as the results became clear.

After the election, Alen Bağ made a short speech and said, "We achieved the impossible; we thank the members and friends who did not spare their support."

Named after the whale known as the “world’s loneliest whale” because it emits sounds at a frequency of 52 hertz and is therefore thought not to be heard by other whales, the play traces a history where being heard is not always possible.

The play is set on Kınalıada

Based on the autobiographical stories of the female actors of the Hangardz team—who keep the Armenian culture and art tradition in Istanbul alive on stage—“52 Hertz” was produced in a collective process using the devised theater technique. The play brings a common language built on memory, invisibility, and solidarity to the stage. Set on Kınalıada, the production tells the story of four women's efforts to create a play that they could not stage despite their hard work, against all difficulties.

The cast of the play includes Diana Chilingaryan, Garine Maral Çizmeciyan, Lara Narin, and Tara Demircioğlu. Directed by Zinnure Türe, the production features costume design by Hilal Polat, lighting design by Utku Kara, and visual design by Anet Sandra Açıkgöz.

The premiere of the play will take place on April 2 at DasDas Open Stage. It will meet the audience on April 3 at Habitat Stage and on April 14 at Claphall Stage. On April 22, conversations and a discussion will be organized around "52 Hertz."

Speaking to the BBC, Archbishop Mullally shared a reflection in her first sermon: "When I look back at my life—thinking of the young Sarah who found faith in God and decided to follow Jesus—I could never have imagined the future that lay before me, and certainly not where I am standing now."

The ceremony was attended by approximately 2,000 guests, including Prince William and Catherine, Princess of Wales, representing King Charles; Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer; and various dignitaries who gathered to hear her inaugural sermon. Among the guests were nurses and caregivers from Canterbury, invited in a special nod to the Archbishop’s former career in nursing.

Historically referred to as an "enthronement," the ceremony marked the symbolic beginning of Dame Sarah Mullally’s public service as the Archbishop of Canterbury. Since the time of St. Augustine in 597 AD, all 105 previous archbishops have been men. It was only in 1994 that the Church of England first permitted women to be ordained as priests.

"On one hand, I am trying to get used to the idea of being the Archbishop, and on the other, I am trying to grasp the significance of being the first woman in this role," the 63-year-old Dame Sarah told the BBC.

From Nursing to the Archbishopric

The Archbishop noted that while she has received significant support from her male colleagues, the ceremony carried a spirit that "uplifts women." Having practiced nursing since 1980, Dame Sarah became the youngest-ever Chief Nursing Officer of England in 1999. She was still holding this position when she was ordained as a priest in 2002; by 2018, she had become the first female Bishop of London.

However, some traditionalists within the Church of England and the wider Anglican Communion continue to oppose the ordination of women. Earlier this month, conservative clergy meeting in Abuja, Nigeria, gathered to select Rwandan Archbishop Laurent Mbanda as their leader in opposition to Dame Sarah's appointment. She will also have to work alongside other bishops in England who, due to their theological convictions, refuse to ordain women as priests.

Ceremony Details and Modernization

In the days leading up to the ceremony, Dame Sarah completed a six-day, 145-kilometer (approx. 90 miles) pilgrimagefrom St. Paul’s Cathedral to Canterbury Cathedral. This theme of pilgrimage was woven into the ceremony, with religious rituals performed at various points stretching from the west end of the cathedral to the east.

The proceedings began with Dame Sarah striking the West Door of the cathedral three times with her crozier (staff), where she was greeted by children. At the nave, she took her oath upon the "Saint John’s Bible"—a new Bible used for the first time since 1945, seen by many as a reflection of the Church’s modernization.

Throughout the service, hymns were sung, including songs in Urdu, a Gospel reading in Spanish, and a prayer in Zambia’s Bemba language, all intended to highlight the diversity of the global Anglican Communion.

Reyhane, 22, is a young English literature graduate from Tehran. She crossed the Agarak-Norduz border into Armenia just two days before the war broke out between the U.S.-Israel and Iran. For Reyhane, this journey was not an escape from a battlefield, but an escape from a total “digital blackout.”

“My partner is in Austria. We’ve been together for four years, and during the internet shutdowns, we couldn’t even have a simple phone call,” she says. The internet blackouts in Iran cost her more than just personal connections; because there was no internet, she also missed her university application deadlines. Now in Yerevan, she is trying to obtain an Armenian residency permit because it is the only way she can apply for an Austrian visa.

Digital exiles like Reyhane are professionals and students who are not necessarily fleeing physical destruction brought by war, but rather the collapse of their digital lives. They come seeking a safe space to access the internet and a stable IP address to connect with their jobs, studies, and personal lives.

According to the internet freedom monitor NetBlocks, Iran spent nearly a third of 2026 without internet. This situation did more than just slow down the web; it decimated the entire digital economy.

Major e-commerce, marketing, and tourism companies—once the lifeblood of Iran’s tech scene—faced a total collapse in revenue. This was followed by mass layoffs and company shutdowns. Today, the Iranian LinkedIn feed has turned into a sea of “Open to Work” banners posted by professionals who connect through various VPNs just to let the world know they are still looking for a way out.

Across the border in Armenia, the digital world reopens. Here, Iranians reconnect with their new livelihoods and their futures.

Safety for some, survival for others

Yerevan is no stranger to the sudden influx of first Russian, and now Iranian digital exiles. In 2022, the city became a primary destination for thousands of Russians fleeing the effects of war and financial sanctions. However, the contrast with this new wave from Iran is striking. While the Russian wave was largely a corporate process involving giants like Yandex relocating entire departments and banking systems, the Iranian influx is progressing more quietly. This group is composed of IT workers, small startups, students, and freelancers who depend on the global web for their daily needs.

Arian, 34, moved to Yerevan in September and works as a product manager for a German IT company. Following the 12-day war in June between Iran and Israel, his company relocated its entire office to Armenia.

“The main reason was the internet,” Arian explains. “Our German sponsors and clients could no longer tolerate the constantly dropping connections. We were given a short notice: either we move or we shut down.” Ten employees from the Tehran office, along with their families, have settled in Yerevan.

While Russian immigrants benefit from Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) protections that provide them with automatic work rights and a legal residency certificate for just $80, Iranians meet much more difficult conditions. For Iranians, legal residency requires a temporary residence permit costing $400. This implies a job and an entry fee five times higher than what Russians pay.

On the other hand, the lack of any demand for legislative reform from the Iranian business community causes the economic potential of this young workforce to be squandered in perpetual cycles of visa renewals. Without a clear path for integration, these employees risk drifting into the informal labor market. This situation not only undercuts local wages but also deprives Armenia of the strategic growth these digital exiles could provide.

Armenia’s recent moves regarding digital contracts and work quotas are positive steps toward formalizing this labor force; however, the barriers remain high for the growing class of Iranian freelancers. The government could ensure that tax incentives and residency criteria are accessible not only to corporate giants or those with privileged passports, but also to the independent strategists and content creators trying to build a life in Yerevan.

Integration vs. Transit

For many Iranians, Yerevan is a “waiting room”—a space where they can maintain their Western-facing careers until they obtain a European visa. For others, the cultural proximity of Armenia to Iran offers the potential for a permanent life.

For Niloufar, a digital designer, and her husband, a cryptocurrency trader, Armenia represents simply the “capacity to work.” Niloufar says that since moving, she has finally been able to reach the volume of work needed to sustain their new life.

But not everyone comes for the digital economy. For some parents, their children’s access to the digital world is a deciding factor. Seventeen-year-old Nima, who recently received the national “Youth Programmer” award, depends on the internet not just for communication, but for his education and work. For 12-year-old Pouya, the internet is an essential tool for studying, playing, and doing schoolwork without distractions or the constant worry of war.

Leaving Iran remains a privilege. Military service obligations, exit fees, and travel costs have trapped many talented professionals. Those who reach the border gate are the lucky few who can bypass these restrictions.

Whether Armenia can transform this regional brain drain into a “brain gain” in its own favor depends on the steps it takes. Will the country offer a permanent life, or will it just be a temporary desk for those with one eye on the door?

Summarized from the report by Melika Safaei for CivilNet.

A hearing is being held in the 17-judge Grand Chamber, which serves as the appellate body of the ECHR, to consider Kavala's second application.

The Grand Chamber is not expected to announce a decision immediately following the hearing. However, the ECHR has prioritized the evaluation of Kavala's second application. The final ruling is expected to be announced without delay in the upcoming months.

Osman Kavala, a businessman known for his work in the field of civil society, was detained on October 18, 2017, and arrested on November 1, 2017. At the heart of the arrest were the 2013 Gezi Park protests.

Kavala was acquitted in this case in 2020, and a release order was issued. On the same day, Kavala was re-detained and arrested as part of an ongoing case on charges of "attempting to overthrow the constitutional order."

Under this case, Kavala faces an aggravated life sentence—upheld by the Court of Cassation—on the charge of "attempting to overthrow the Government of the Republic of Turkey or prevent it from performing its duties."

Kavala, for his part, denies the accusations and states that he has "undergone a trial process in which the presumption of innocence was violated, and groundless allegations and false statements were used."

The first decision was announced in 2019

The judicial process regarding Kavala has held a significant place on the ECHR's agenda from the beginning.

The ECHR announced its first decision regarding Kavala on December 10, 2019. This decision concerned the arrest and the period of pre-trial detention.

In its judgment, the Court ruled that Turkey violated Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which regulates the right to liberty and security, and Article 18, regarding the limitation on the use of restrictions on rights.

The ECHR ruling stated that "the judicial authorities, while issuing the arrest warrant, did not justify the alleged suspicion with concrete evidence and used existing laws for the purpose of silencing Osman Kavala and deterring other human rights defenders."

In the same decision, in the context of Article 46 concerning the binding force and execution of judgments, it was also ruled that Turkey must take all necessary measures to end Kavala's detention and ensure his immediate release.

In the first case filed by Kavala, the Court concluded that Kavala was unlawfully and arbitrarily deprived of his liberty due to an unreasonable interpretation and application of the relevant legislation, and demanded his immediate release.

Following Turkey's failure to fulfill the requirements of the ECHR decision, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe referred the matter back to the Court for a formal determination of this situation.

In its decision on July 11, 2022, the ECHR ruled that Article 46, paragraph 1 of the Convention—which states, "The High Contracting Parties undertake to abide by the final judgment of the Court in any case to which they are parties"—had been violated.

Kavala's second application

In his second application made on January 18, 2024, Kavala brought all measures taken against him following the December 10, 2019 decision before the ECHR. In this context, the argument is presented that Turkey has violated seven articles of the Convention.

The articles of the Convention subject to the application and alleged to have been violated are as follows:

• Article 3: Prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment.

• Article 5: Right to liberty and security.

• Article 6: Right to a fair trial.

• Article 7: No punishment without law.

• Article 10: Freedom of expression.

• Article 11: Freedom of assembly and association.

• Article 18: Limitation on use of restrictions on rights.

Normally, this application, also referred to as "Kavala 2," was expected to be evaluated and decided upon by a chamber of the ECHR consisting of seven judges. Although the process began this way, the relevant chamber relinquished its jurisdiction in favor of the Grand Chamber on December 16, 2025.

10 questions sent to the parties

On January 19, 2026, the ECHR sent 10 questions to the parties. Among the questions are whether the applicant has exhausted domestic remedies, whether his detention after the 2019 decision can be considered an arbitrary restriction of liberty, whether the trial process provided a fair opportunity for the determination of the criminal charges brought against the applicant, and whether the principle of the presumption of innocence was upheld. The hearing regarding the application will generally proceed based on the answers to these questions.

Compliance with ECHR decisions is mandatory

Pursuant to Article 46 of the Convention, ECHR judgments are binding for the states that are party to the convention. Turkey signed the ECHR in 1950 and ratified it in 1954. Having recognized the right to individual application in 1987, Turkey has recognized the compulsory jurisdiction of the ECHR since 1989.

The implementation of ECHR decisions is carried out through individual or general measures. Individual measures aim to eliminate the causes leading to the violation of the applicant's rights, while general measures consist of steps to eliminate the violation subject to the application for everyone and thus prevent the recurrence of the violation.

The monitoring of the implementation of ECHR decisions is conducted by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe. Turkey's level of compliance with decisions announced by the ECHR is generally quite high. It is noteworthy that in critical cases, such as those of Osman Kavala and Selahattin Demirtaş, this compliance rate follows a lower course.

In 2021, President Tayyip Erdoğan stated: "We do not recognize the decisions taken by the European Union regarding Kavala, Demirtaş, this one, or that one. It is that simple. We consider them non-existent. In our view, these are null and void."

Talar Horozoğlu, one of the benefactors of the Hrant Dink School, greeted the guests in her opening speech. The visit, where students from both the Huys Association and the Hrant Dink School performed dances, also served as an occasion for new acquaintances. During the event, which included activities organized by magician Arman Köse, t-shirts printed with Armenian letters prepared by the Hrant Dink School and cards crafted by the students of the Huys Association were presented to one another as gifts.

In his speech regarding the peace process, Bahçeli said, “Every one of our people who meets on the common denominator of the Turkish nation will emerge victorious with the complete termination of the scourge of terrorism, which has blocked the path of our nation and our country for decades and caused many instances of heavy destruction, loss, and a hefty bill. There is no point in stifling the process, rushing it, or inflaming the debates. We have set out on the path; God willing, we will arrive.” He then used the expressions, “A Terror-Free Turkey is the stance of the crescent against those who carry a cross in their bosom. A Terror-Free Turkey is the consciousness of the lawful (halal) against those who make the forbidden (haram) a gate for their livelihood.”

Highlights from Bahçeli’s statements are as follows:

“The Zionist-imperialist betrayal network did not care for Ramadan or the holiday; they tried every path of violence to turn our sacred days into a dungeon and poison them. We are more eager, excited, and determined than ever to rot the seeds of discord that some wish to scatter among us one by one. We will be one, we will be together, and we will show the whole world that strength comes from unity. Our effort is for a stronger state.

The goal of a Terror-Free Turkey is a historical door of opportunity ahead of us. Ensuring a permanent and inclusive environment for Turkey and the countries of the region will be achieved primarily through solidarity, cooperation, and the struggle of turning toward the same 'qibla' (direction of prayer). We can no longer tolerate the massacre of innocents, children, and defenseless civilian populations, and we hope for this mentality to end. Let the glory and honor of the crescent prevail in the skies, rather than the traces of missiles. The road we will embark upon—with a depth of vision that correctly reads global developments, with a sense of justice, and with a synthesis of reason and patience—will carry us to a superpower Turkey.

As MHP and the People's Alliance, we have and will have responsibilities that we cannot neglect toward Islamic societies and the Turkic world, as well as toward all of humanity, just as much as our responsibilities toward our own country.

Since February 28, it has been understood that the Islamic Republic of Iran is not an easy bite. The ongoing war on the other side of our borders has shown that no hostile power has a chance of success without dissolving a people and a nation from within. This is why it has been documented that our goal of a Terror-Free Turkey is both a blessing from God and the wise mind within the banner of history, culture, and sovereignty of the beloved Turkish nation. Those who scoff at our goal of a Terror-Free Turkey are now hiding in every corner. Those who look askance at our call for a Terror-Free Turkey and a terror-free region, and those who make baseless accusations, have stood frozen like a rabbit caught in the headlights as our righteousness became clear. We still do not want them to remain frozen; we want and invite them to support our march toward the Century of the Turk and Turkey.

Turks and Kurds are the symbols of an unbreakable brotherhood. Together we are the Turkish nation; we are all the Republic of Turkey. While geographies undergo earthquakes and geopolitical storms grow into giants, while the era of war and conflict is rapidly triggered, we will say there is no benefit to us from others; we will not pay heed to anyone's devilish plans, we will not give joy to the agitators, and together we will never allow our flag to be lowered. There is no end to identity politics. There is no winner in ethnic and sectarian-based polarization. However, above all, saying 'Turkey' has a priority at the level of national survival.

Democratic and legal regulations will be fulfilled

Based on the report prepared by the commission within the scope of a Terror-Free Turkey, democratic and legal regulations will be fulfilled step by step. In this process, it should be fundamental to carefully avoid painful statements that would lead to misunderstandings, conflict with good intentions, or increase vulnerabilities. There is no point in stifling the process or rushing it. We have set out on the path; God willing, we will arrive. We have set a goal; God willing, we will reach it. We said a Terror-Free Turkey, and with the permission of God, we will succeed.

Against those who carry a cross in their bosom...

A Terror-Free Turkey is the stance of the crescent against those who carry a cross in their bosom. I believe that after the holiday, comprehensive reforms will be implemented stage by stage. Legal and democratic steps will be taken in order, without resorting to cheap calculations, without seeking profit from weak disagreements, and without following simple judgments. Turk and Kurd are together in it all, through thick and thin.

In this process, it should be fundamental to avoid painful statements that would lead to misunderstandings, conflict with good intentions, or increase vulnerabilities. A Terror-Free Turkey is not a time-limited and contentious sports match. Therefore, there will never be parties who walk off the field with their heads bowed.

Both our medicine and our weapon are ready

We will certainly witness that the slanderers—who claim there is a 'red line' between us and the founding leadership of the PKK—will be crossed out with a red pen by the Turkish nation itself. Time is the greatest medicine; patience is the strongest weapon. Thank God, both our medicine and our weapon are ready.

The real change of administration must happen in Israel

The death of innocent people is murder. Whoever is a partner in this murder is a criminal before humanity. Israel has turned into a death machine that is blinded, drinks blood, takes lives, and attacks anyone in its path. The real regime change, the real change of administration, must take place in Israel. This should be the primary agenda of the U.S. President. It is a great danger and a direct insult to the American people that Israel influences the U.S. governance system and dictates the direction of decision-making and auditing bodies through one way or another.”

As Armenia moves towards the June 2026 parliamentary elections, the polls reflected in the public offer a familiar picture at first glance: the ruling party is still the leading party, the opposition is fragmented, and the rate of undecided voters is high. This picture reminds many observers of the atmosphere prior to the 2021 elections; in that election, the rate of the undecided was also high, and ultimately, the Civil Contract Party led by Nikol Pashinyan achieved a much stronger victory than expected.

2021

However, this similarity can be misleading because the picture facing Armenian politics today is not a situation that can be explained merely by the competition between parties. Deeper down, there is a dynamic pointing to a crisis of political representation. In the picture drawn by the in-depth analyses conducted by the International Republican Institute's (IRI) February 2026 poll, the Armenian Election Study (ArmES), and EVN Report throughout the December 2025-February 2026 period, we clearly see that the Armenian voter is at a major crossroads. However, when the "stable majority" principle of the Armenian Electoral Code and the electoral threshold system are considered, we must also state how fragile and even impossible the theoretically constructed dreams of a 'broad-based coalition' look.

To understand today's large mass of undecided voters, we must first understand the illusion experienced in the traumatic atmosphere of the June 2021 elections. In this election held after the Second Karabakh War, the Civil Contract Party led by Pashinyan maintained its single-party rule in parliament by receiving 53.95 percent of the votes. From an external perspective, this result was interpreted as a rare consolidation success of a government that had lost a war, or as the undecided masses turning to the government at the last moment, saying "stability." Yet the turnout rate in the 2021 elections remained at quite a low level, at 49.37 percent. If we focus on the absolute number of votes entering the ballot box, compared to the approximately 884,000 votes Pashinyan received in the elections held after the 2018 Velvet Revolution, it had dropped to 688,000 in 2021. In other words, there was no undecided mass that made up its mind at the last moment and rushed to the government; on the contrary, the government had lost approximately 200,000 voters in three years.

The main reason the Civil Contract Party obtained the parliamentary majority was that this undecided and angry mass that broke away from the government boycotted the ballot box by not voting for the opposition either. The voter wanted neither the return of the "old regime" represented by Robert Kocharyan nor to give a new blank check to Nikol Pashinyan. As a result, while the opposition's ceiling vote remained at a certain limit, Pashinyan grew proportionally in the shrinking voter pool because he managed to bring his consolidated base to the ballot box.

Therefore, when understanding the 2021 outcome by considering both mechanisms together; it is understood that while a portion of the undecided turned to the Civil Contract Party at the last moment, a decisive portion did not go to the polls. As stated in the EVN/ArmES analysis, in a low-turnout environment, parties with strong core voters achieve proportionally higher results, and it turns out that the 53.95 percent obtained by the Civil Contract Party in 2021 was exactly the product of this dynamic.

What the polls say: There is a leading party, but no trust

Looking at the responses to the question "Which party would you vote for if elections were held next Sunday?" in IRI's February 2026 poll, the Civil Contract Party receives around 24 percent support, Strong Armenia 9 percent, the Armenia Alliance 3 percent, and the Prosperous Armenia Party around 3 percent. According to the same table, the undecided is at 30 percent, and those who do not want to answer are at 9 percent. In other words, the total rate of voters who will not tell us what they will do at the ballot box reaches almost 40 percent.

There is a similar picture in the EVN/ArmES analysis. Civil Contract seems set to receive 26.1 percent, Strong Armenia 11.9 percent, the Prosperous Armenia Party 6 percent, and the Armenia Alliance around 3.3 percent. But just like in the IRI poll results, what is striking here is this: the "I don't know" and "I don't want to answer" categories together reach 36.7 percent. This means that more than a third of voters still stand somewhere outside of politics.

Both poll results say two things at the same time: Civil Contract is still the clear leading party, but trust in the entire political establishment is quite weak. In the IRI research, the most striking indicator of this emerges in the question "Who is the politician you trust the most?". In this question, the largest category, by a wide margin, is the "no one" option: 48 percent.

EVN/ArmES's data regarding the Prime Minister's approval ratings complete this picture. The total of those who say they "strongly disapprove" of Pashinyan, at 32 percent, is much higher than the 'somewhat disapprove' answer. This shows that approximately one-third of the general population is seriously consolidated against the government. On the other hand, the total approval rate hovers around 36 percent; a figure that perfectly matches Pashinyan's stable base support of around 35 percent, which has been seen in previous research as well. Moreover, the picture does not look very bright among the undecided either: 35.4 percent of undecided voters approve, while 33.5 percent disapprove. The 30 percent "I don't know" and "I don't want to answer" category highly likely represents the low-turnout voter who will not go to the ballot box.

The five colors of the undecided: The codes of cross-analysis

When we subject the IRI and EVN/ArmES data to cross-analysis and we try to understand where these voters who avoid naming a party stand through their responses to other questions, we can probably assume 5 groups.

Silent Pashinyanists:

Despite claiming to be undecided, they lie at the heart of the 47 percent optimistic group in the IRI poll who say, 'Armenia is going in the right direction.' They support the government's peace policies and the reforms in the army. They think Civil Contract is taking the country in the right direction, but they avoid speaking out due to economic pains. Out of fear of instability breaking down on election day, they will likely vote for Civil Contract again.

Third-wayers:

This mass, which we predict will be the true determiners of fate in 2026, are those who gave the answer "Unemployment (18 percent)" and "Cost of living (11 percent)" as the country's biggest problem in the IRI data. They believe the peace process will open the borders, they do not want to return to the old regime, but they are also not satisfied with the current government's economic management. In fact, the Armenian economy has shown strong macro-level growth in recent years. Double-digit growth in 2022, the expansion of the technology sector, and the capital inflow that followed the Russia-Ukraine war accelerated the economy. However, this growth has not reflected equally across all segments of society. While the technology and service economy has grown rapidly in Yerevan, the cost of living has increased in many regions, but incomes have not risen at the same pace. Therefore, how this mass will act and which party and/or leader can persuade this group to what extent becomes of enormous importance. It seems very likely that this group will directly impact the election results.

 Resentful conservatives:

Consists of the traditional/conservative voter who expresses a high level of trust in the Armenian Apostolic Church (62 percent satisfied) and approaches the peace agreement with suspicion. In the IRI poll, the answer "Pressure on the clergy (7 percent)" given to the question regarding "the government's biggest failure in the last six months" stands out strikingly. At the same time, this mass thinks the state has broken away from historical memory. They are the group most prone to shift by reflex to the conservative/nationalist bloc (Armenia Alliance, etc.) at the ballot box; however, whether these parties can pass the threshold remains a major uncertainty.

Youth are angry at the system:

The digital generation in the 18-35 age bracket, who say they support Armenia's possible accession to the European Union by a rate of roughly 75 percent, but who believe the Pashinyan government has fallen short on accountability. According to EVN/ArmES data, 51.5 percent of undecided voters are of the opinion that the current government has not done enough to prosecute those responsible for the previous regimes. Because liberal parties/alliances that might influence this group will likely get stuck at the electoral threshold, it seems possible that they will remain without options at the ballot box and/or highly likely choose the path of boycotting.

Total boycotters:

The apolitical segment that has completely lost faith in politics, saying "my vote will change nothing in this country." This segment appears in the IRI poll with the answers "I don't trust any party or leader (20 percent)" and "my vote doesn't matter at all (13 percent)" to the question "Why won't you vote?". The fact that this group does not go to the ballot box will mathematically always serve the ruling party in maintaining its parliamentary majority.

Electoral threshold: The 4% party and 8% alliance wall

According to the Armenian electoral system, parties must pass a high threshold of 4 percent to enter parliament, while alliances formed by multiple parties coming together must pass 8 percent. At this point, a critical question arises: Do liberal or pro-Western forces other than Pashinyan have a chance of entering parliament?

Today's polls do not offer much hope in this regard. In the IRI data, actors with liberal rhetoric such as the Republic Party led by Aram Sargsyan, the Wings of Unity led by Arman Tatoyan, and the Armenian Meritocracy Party led by Gurgen Simonyan appear to be around 1 percent. If these small liberal parties enter the election alone, they will remain under the 4 percent threshold. If they want to unite and form a "Pro-Western Alliance" to survive, this time they will face the 8 percent alliance threshold, which is much harder to overcome. The EVN analysis also draws attention to this point, and apart from the Civil Contract Party, there appears to be no pro-Western actor capable of passing the threshold. So why can't they surpass 8 percent? Because in the IRI poll, almost 48 percent of voters say, "I do not trust any politician." That large mass of 51 percent who say they would vote 'Definitely Yes' in a possible EU membership referendum do not trust the actors of the system when it comes to domestic politics.

This deep-rooted distrust of the system makes it impossible for small parties to create a mass wave that would overcome the 8 percent threshold. Therefore, just as in 2021, the electoral threshold will work in 2026, and Pashinyan's party will highly likely remain alone as the sole "Western-oriented, liberal-democratic" axis in parliament. And this signifies a significant void in Armenian politics.

Strong Armenia and the opposition's new center

In today's polls, the strongest actor of the opposition appears to be Strong Armenia (Mer Tsevov). The EVN analysis clearly shows that this party has gathered a significant portion of the votes that went to the Armenia Alliance in 2021. In the EVN research, Strong Armenia is around 11.9 percent, the Prosperous Armenia Party is 6 percent, and the Armenia Alliance is 3.3 percent. When these three rates are combined, it equals the approximately 21 percent vote that the Armenia Alliance received in the 2021 elections. Meaning, the opposition currently in parliament has not disappeared; it has merely been redistributed.

The structure of Strong Armenia's voter base largely consists of the mass that voted for Kocharyan in 2021. This indicates that beyond purely economic rhetoric, the party is also fueled by codes of identity and nostalgia. Although party leader Samvel Karapetyan avoids using the vindictive language of the old regime, his business roots and relationship with Moscow reveal that this party harbors a serious geopolitical contradiction. It is a party with a strong pro-Russian orientation. On the other hand, according to the IRI poll results, it is also seen that 51 percent of its voters say, "The country is going in the wrong direction."

One of the most interesting parts of the February 2026 IRI poll involves questions regarding the declaration known as TRIPP (Trump's Route of Peace and Prosperity), signed between Armenia, Azerbaijan, and the USA in Washington in August 2025. The implementation of this declaration includes the construction of a road, railway, and other infrastructure passing through the Syunik region. According to the poll, 44 percent of the participants support TRIPP, while 47 percent oppose it. 5 percent state that they are hearing about the project for the first time. These figures reveal a fault line running right through the middle of society. Among supporters, economic growth (30 percent), the establishment of peace (19 percent), and overcoming the blockade (16 percent) stand out as primary expectations. Among opponents, security concerns (20 percent), the free entry of enemy country citizens (16 percent), and the fear of losing Syunik (12 percent) are decisive.

Similarly, the EVN/ArmES analysis confirms this: 37.2 percent of undecided voters find TRIPP beneficial, while 29.2 percent do not. The rate of those saying, "I don't know" and "I don't want to answer" is higher in the undecided group at 33.6 percent compared to the general sample; which shows how deep the ignorance or anxiety regarding this issue is.

TRIPP will create a decisive field of contention

From the perspective of voter preferences, a deep polarization is striking. While 61 percent of Civil Contract voters support TRIPP, 64 percent of Armenia Alliance voters and 69 percent of Strong Armenia voters oppose it. These numbers indicate that TRIPP will become one of the decisive battlegrounds of the election campaign.

In this context, the IRI poll reveals that there is a split surrounding the government's biggest success/failure in the last six months. While "securing the peace process (17 percent)", "diversification of foreign policy (9 percent)", and "modernization of the army (7 percent)" stand out among the government's main successes; "wrong foreign policy and diplomacy (10 percent)" leads the list of main failures. The fact that a single issue can be evaluated as both the primary success and the primary failure shows what a fragile and controversial political climate Armenia is in.

Western rhetoric - Russian capital

Let's assume that this 39 percent undecided voter base, which we mentioned in the first article, went to the ballot box instead of boycotting, punished the government with economic anger, and Civil Contract could not catch the threshold to become a single-party majority in parliament. The Constitution grants parties that enter parliament only a short 6-day coalition negotiation period to form a government.

If liberals with a relatively small vote potential get stuck at the 8 percent alliance threshold or the 4 percent party threshold and are not in parliament, Strong Armenia remains as the sole strong actor capable of forming a coalition with Pashinyan.

However, a massive geopolitical dilemma comes into the picture. In an equation where Armenia receives support from the European Peace Facility, develops strategic partnerships with the USA, and where 51 percent of its people (those who would say 'Definitely Yes' in an EU referendum) would like to join the European Union; it seems practically impossible for a Civil Contract trying to integrate with the West to sit in the same cabinet with a Strong Armenia that has deep-rooted ties with Moscow. Such a coalition would mean the mutual destruction of both sides at once.

The foreign policy data in the IRI poll concretely reveals this contradiction. 43 percent of voters see Russia, and 42 percent see the USA as Armenia's most important political partner. To the question "What should Armenia's foreign policy course be?", 49 percent answer "Exclusively pro-European and pro-Western or pro-Western while maintaining relations with Russia," while 33 percent say, "Exclusively pro-Russian or pro-Russian while maintaining relations with the West." When looked at by party, the gap deepens: 73 percent of Civil Contract voters want a pro-Western course, while 65 percent of Strong Armenia voters carry a pro-Russian tendency.

Therefore, the prospect of these two voter bases living in the shadow of a joint cabinet does not seem possible in practice, insofar as it contradicts the political map in the minds of the voters.

The ultimate solution to the constitutional crisis: The Second Round Referendum

The Armenian Electoral Code allows the implementation of the most radical mechanism, the second-round system, precisely so that such ideological and geopolitical deadlocks are not experienced. If a coalition cannot be formed within 6 days, the election is not canceled, and a second-round vote must be held 28 days later between the top two political parties (or alliances) that received the most votes.

In this scenario, in a race where all other parties except the top two are out of the game, the elections will transform from a parliamentary election into a referendum voting on the existential course of the country. If the picture remains for the second round as the current polls indicate (Civil Contract 24-29 percent, Strong Armenia 9-12 percent), the dynamics will change radically. The liberal/pro-Western voter who turned to small parties or did not go to the ballot box in the first round saying, "I trust none of them" will reluctantly return to Pashinyan in the second round out of fear of "Russian-backed forces taking over the state." On the other side, the base of Kocharyan and the Prosperous Armenia Party will unite around Strong Armenia out of hatred for Pashinyan.

However, we must remember that this was exactly the main reason for the low turnout/boycott in 2021. When faced with two bad options, the voter preferred not to go to the polls instead of choosing one. Although 68 percent of all participants answered, "I will definitely participate" to the IRI poll's question "How much do you intend to participate in the election?", this rate does not always match actual election day behavior. Therefore, if the possibility of a second round materializes in 2026 and this 39 percent undecided mass once again does not go to the polls; this situation of low voter turnout will benefit the ruling party, which has a loyal and mobilized base, and will ensure it guarantees its 54 percent parliamentary majority. In this sense, paradoxically, the boycott will not become the primary tool of the segments seeking to change the status quo, but rather the most effective force preserving the current balance.

Election or a referendum of trust?

When all this picture is put together, an interesting and somewhat gloomy conclusion emerges. Political debates mostly focus on the struggle between Pashinyan and the opposition parties. Yet the data seen in the polls tell another story: Almost half of the voters say they do not trust any politician.

Therefore, the biggest risk facing Pashinyan today is not merely the strengthening of the opposition. EVN/ArmES's forward-looking data on the economy also supports this signal. While the rate of those who think the economy will be better in the coming year is 35.3 percent, the rate of those who think it will be worse is 23.2 percent. Positive expectations have increased compared to the retrospective perception (32 percent); while negative expectations have visibly dropped (from 37.9 percent to 23.2 percent). This cautious optimism forms a base for the government; however, the dramatic rise in "I don't know" answers (from 7.3 percent to 27.9 percent) clearly reveals how fragile the voter's faith in the future is.

Referendum of trust

To the question "Has Armenia improved in the field of security?" in the IRI poll, the voter, considering the August 2025 Washington agreements and the subsequent developments, gives the answer "Satisfied with the Armed Forces" at between 72 and 73 percent; this rate indicates a solid level even for historical averages. This rate, which fell to the 40s in 2021, provides an important indicator of what kind of course it will follow during the process. On the other hand, in EVN/ArmES data, 50.7 percent of undecided voters are of the opinion that the security environment has improved; this rate is higher than the general sample and is a critical signal for the government.

The 2026 elections, therefore, may not just be a race for power. This election could also be a referendum of trust. The voter will decide not only between parties but also regarding whether they trust politics itself. The undecided, who cannot find the "third, clean, liberal" alternative (due to the 4 percent or 8 percent electoral thresholds), seem condemned once again to the lack of options imposed by mathematics, just as in 2021. Therefore, they will either reluctantly support the government's Western-oriented but economically painful normalization; or they will open the door to new actors relying on Russian capital under the name of pragmatism; or they will indirectly prolong the status quo's lifespan in parliament by boycotting the ballot box.

Perhaps the real outcome of these elections will not just be who wins, but the answer to the question of whether politics in Armenia can become convincing again and whether citizens can regain their trust in the political system. The answer to this question, however, will be read not from the votes counted on election day, but from the silent choice of the millions who do not go to the ballot box that day.

As journalists waiting in lines during the Silivri frost at the crack of dawn, we turn to one another and discuss "what might happen." We recount the potential arguments and the difficulties the press is likely to face. It’s almost like a duty rehearsal... Our previous experiences serve as our guide. However, the call from the gendarmerie saying "press first" surprises us. Journalists passing through the checks easily receive their badges and begin waiting at the courtroom door. Although the fact that the press was inside before everyone else for the first time astonished us, this feeling did not linger for long. We understood as soon as we entered the courtroom and were shown the area reserved for the press. Taking the press in early was not a gesture, nor did it have anything to do with transparency. Located at the furthest right corner of the courtroom, it was impossible to see the detained defendants or the bench, or to clearly hear what was being said. Furthermore, in the seating arrangement, there was no area for the press to take notes, nor was there electricity to charge laptops. There were flexibilities in the 25-journalist limit; we were more crowded than the first day. They had placed the press at the very front. However, all of these were merely performative acts of goodwill.

The space reserved for the press offered a clue

From the very beginning, throwing the press into the back row of an open court gave us an idea of how the trial would proceed. The court bench did not prove us wrong with their attitude the moment they entered the hall. Although Ekrem İmamoğlu—who has been detained for a year, whose name is mentioned in every act in the indictment, and who is accused of establishing and leading a criminal organization—wanted to speak, the court did not allow it. İmamoğlu was insistent on speaking; he had waited a year for this moment. İmamoğlu fueled his search for rights with his "Black Sea persistence" and would not give up. The bench could not cope and found the solution in calling for a recess.

Families greeting their loved ones are silenced

While the hearings continued with difficulty under the court's constantly changing instructions, the hands of defendants—who had been away from their families for a very long time—raised in greeting were forced down; families calling out to their loved ones were silenced; and journalists were distanced or restricted so they could not write or report. Neither citizens nor politicians could be included in the proceedings of a public trial.

The court had engaged in arguments with everyone, from the defendants and lawyers to the journalists and spectators. These arguments were always one-sided; the struggle for rights entered by the defendant, lawyer, or journalist against the bench ended with the court's most solid power: the "decision to adjourn."

The defendants, who had been detained for a year and found their first opportunity to defend themselves, were eager to take the rostrum, but the list, which the court said was "ordered according to the incidents," was not progressing. Even though İmamoğlu insistently said, "Release these people, let them be with their families for the holiday, fight me alone," the detention status of even those who were ill or had no remaining sentence to serve was not being evaluated. Detention had ceased to be a measure and had turned into a tool used for punishment, trampling human dignity underfoot.

"Maya said 'Father'"

For two weeks, families calling out to their loved ones every day consoled one another while trying to hide their tears. News coming from the 7.5-month-old daughter of the İBB Head of Urban Planning, Ramazan Gülten—who was born while he was inside—filled everyone’s eyes with tears. As soon as Ramazan entered the hall, the lawyers and spectators all joined in to help his wife's voice reach him from the spectator rows: "Maya said 'Father'." We listened to the defense of a defendant benefiting from "effective repentance" (informant status) under the weight of those three words. During statements that were contradictory, lacked concrete evidence, and were based on hearsay, only baby Maya came to mind.

The next day, words got stuck in the throat of a young lawyer defending his detained uncle. While defending his beloved uncle against the "effective repentance" statements shown as evidence for mediating bribes, he debunked the allegations one by one. It was one of the moments I was most curious about. I wanted to see his uncle at that moment. His young nephew was beginning his professional life with the most difficult case in the country. Moreover, his uncle was one of the defendants. I wonder how he felt? But I couldn’t see; the lodge that the court bench deemed worthy of the press prevented us from seeing these things. In a case formed by the statements of anonymous witnesses "to the extent they had heard," it was deemed sufficient for the press to write "to the extent they had heard" as well.

The first words of all at the rostrum: "There is someone listening to us"

In seven days spanning two weeks in Silivri, ten defendants finally had the opportunity to explain themselves before a judge for the first time. The first words of every single one of them at the rostrum were, "There is someone listening to us." They all wished to be reunited with their families before the holiday. Despite the pleas from Ekrem İmamoğlu and the lawyers for the bench to make a decision in this direction, there was no response. As they left the hall, the defendants first embraced one another to exchange holiday greetings, then turned to their families and departed, saying, "Happy holidays." At that moment, the atmosphere in the hall grew even heavier; the hands raised for farewell never wanted to come down, and families did not leave the hall until the last detainee was taken away.

After the families left, I looked at the hall for a long time. I remembered my first times coming here, my days as an intern journalist. Ergenekon, Balyoz, KCK, the Cumhuriyet trial... What cases we had watched here. How many separations we had witnessed. Today, that sadness was repeating once again in the same hall. We were once again witnesses to similar pains in different lives. Directly across from us, it is written: "Justice is the foundation of the State." As I grow older in this hall, I find it harder and harder to read. Undoubtedly, it is my vision that is fading. Even if it is far away, the faith within me strengthens its existence. Justice is there, far away. One day, it will go beyond hanging as a mere phrase on a wall. It will come again. It will come back.