Warning: This is a rush transcript generated automatically and may contain errors.
Asbed Bedrossian: Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Armenian News Network Groong Week in Review for August 9, 2026. Folks, thanks for listening to the show. We hope that you will support our work by becoming sustaining members. So go to podcast.groong.org slash donate.
You know what to do. Now on with the show. Hovik, take us to our first topic.
Hovik Manucharyan: Hello everyone. Let’s begin this week by quickly talking about one of the, I would say, greater geopolitical news out of the Middle East, which is that Turkey, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia have signed the Mecca Joint Deterrence Agreement. Essentially, it’s a defense pact. It’s a trilateral defense pact for now that obligates or maybe sort of includes a pledge.
I don’t know how much of a legal obligation is that, but it is a pledge for members to retaliate if any signatory is attacked. So I believe that this is a serious issue that perhaps, you know, maybe the result of US policies in Iran and in the Middle East has essentially pushed these countries to have a more independent streak. All in all, I think this doesn’t bode well for Israel. Pakistan is a nuclear power.
We’ve heard rumors or announcements that U.S. is willing to acquiesce to Saudi civilian nuclear enrichment. And of course, many of these states have, let’s just say, are in the closet about their nuclear ambitions, both like Turkey and Saudi Arabia as well. So, you know, I think that this is an important issue to talk about. And I quickly remembered our previous discussion, Asbed, with Christine Arakelian, who was talking about this issue and, you know, how Turkey is essentially being able to plot this independent course.
None of these other states are members of NATO. So Turkey is now a member of one defensive alliance, now another one. So what do you think about these?
Asbed Bedrossian: Initially, I thought this is driven by an anti-Iranian policy on the surface because I thought maybe it is these three countries are giving each other some kind of a defense pact so that they can retaliate, for example, Saudi Arabia, some kind of defense or Bringing in the military industrial complex from Turkey against the Houthis and possibly deterring Iran from drone attacks against Saudi Arabia. But in reality, there’s one common factor to all these things. I think that all of these countries are completely disillusioned, just like you said, against U.S. policies in the Middle East.
They have, I think, witnessed the limits of U.S. deterrence in the Middle East. They have formed sort of a Sunni alliance. Instead of an Israeli-centric Abraham Accords, they’ve formed their own Islamic-centric pact. So like you said, I think that the loser in this is probably Israel, which is no longer The center of any kind of a Middle East peace, these guys are starting to form their own alliances.
Together, they are, we’re talking about 350 to 450 million people. Against a country of 10 million that wanted to be the center of the peace axis, let’s say, in the Middle East.
Hovik Manucharyan: Yes, in quotes. But also in the Islamic world, I think they are the top three economically speaking. So they are economic powerhouses as well. And what’s interesting about this news is that Al Jazeera is basically quoting one of the representatives who signed this, I forget which country, but essentially they are anticipating that Qatar might join this alliance.
Also, Azerbaijan, Syria, and Jordan. So all Sunni states. So while Pashinyan is dilly-dallying with EU officials and dragging the head of the Armenian Church through courts in frivolous lawsuits, serious reshaping of geopolitics is happening in our region. And we’ll talk more about some of the other things that Armenia is doing or not doing.
Asbed Bedrossian: Trump is dilly-dallying, but Trump is also dilly-dallying. I mean, Steve Witkoff, who has been going to Islamabad and going to other places and trying to sell this very Israel-centric peace , these negotiations with Iran are failing because they walk in and there’s an agenda to be talked about and then they whip out a piece of paper and they say, we want you to join the Abraham Accords. How likely is that, that in the middle of a war, Iran, which has absolutely not lost the war, is going to join an Abraham Accords.
Frankly, if you ask me, it’s more likely that Iran might join this alliance at some point when all these current turbulences are over, rather than joining some kind of an Abraham Accords.
Hovik Manucharyan: Well, yeah, I mean, I think that sectarian differences might prevent that from happening.
Asbed Bedrossian: Yeah, I realize that Iran is a huge Shiite country, but I get it.
Hovik Manucharyan: But yeah, I mean, it is, I think, essentially the Middle East getting out of Trump’s or United States control and all thanks to, you know, these misadventures that Trump was essentially led to go on. This is a blowback against Israel. Also, I think this is a serious threat to Armenia. I’m just wondering, does Armenia even know, or has Pashinyan even discussed this in his National Security Council?
What if Azerbaijan joins this? That will be a serious threat to Armenia. I think that Azerbaijan, you know, we talked to also Eldar Mamedov previously and Azerbaijan, you know, had a very good time and had a very profitable relationship with Israel, which helped Azerbaijan win. Azerbaijan and Turkey, essentially, ethnically cleanse Artsakh and win the war against Armenia.
But now Azerbaijan may be looking to pivot from its Israeli axis. But, you know, I’m not sure that this is a done deal in terms of Azerbaijan essentially closing the book with Israel. But it will be interesting to watch it develop because I think Israel won’t be happy with any of this.
Asbed Bedrossian: Well, certainly we’ve heard before that Israel has become kind of a national security liability for Ilham Aliyev. At some point he is going to think about pivoting towards more stable and long-term relationships and not balance their relationship with Israel with their relationship with Turkey. Frankly, I don’t know how much this presents a problem to Armenia. I get your point that have they even discussed it?
I don’t know. They’ve all been on vacation. So I have no idea if they’ve yet discussed it. But there’s already the Shushi Accords or agreement, whatever it is, between Turkey and Azerbaijan.
So if let’s say Armenia one day decided to attack Azerbaijan, If Turkey could come to their aid, I don’t know how much more we need to think about Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. They’ve already done it.
Hovik Manucharyan: Pakistan is also, I guess, yeah, Pakistan also was de facto involved in the Three Brothers agreement. But now, like, you know, a nuclear power is also signatory to this accord. And if Azerbaijan provokes something in the future, I think that that is a serious potential for involvement of Pakistan.
Asbed Bedrossian: Let’s move to our next topic, Hovik, because we have so much to cover.
Asbed Bedrossian: We’re talking about Iran a little bit. The Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, appointed veteran commander Mohsen Rezaei as secretary of the Supreme National Security Council. IRGC General Ali Abdullahi as Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces. Rezaei previously led the IRGC during the Iran-Iraq War and managed State Economic Council strategies while Abdullahi directed joint military operations at Khatam al-Anbiya and forged key defense ties with Russia.
So the appointment of these figures who have battle-tested themselves since the Iran-Iraq War and have risen through the ranks for decades and in various leadership capacities, this signals a push towards a total institutional alignment, combining proven wartime operational command with economic statecraft and absolute loyalty to the supreme leader. Iranian and regional analysts also view that the choices are an effort to centralize defensive decision making and resist against Western pressure and manage diplomatic negotiations. Did you think anything about these specific appointments?
Hovik Manucharyan: In the wider frame of things where it’s being reported that Iran has basically effectively rejected a deal on the Strait of Hormuz, there is rumor that essentially the nationalist or the conservative camp in Iran is feeling more confident about Iran’s posture in the region. Of course, Iran is claiming that the U.S. and also U.S. through Oman So I think that there was a lot of hope that there could be a deal between Iran and Oman on the Strait of Hormuz. Now I think that’s in question.
It may be a negotiation tactic, I’m not sure, but the wider memorandum of understanding between the U.S. and Iran is still up in the air and there is no indication that there will be some kind of a deal between US and Iran itself. It doesn’t look like it based on these recent news. So, you know, we’ll just have to wait and see. But the appointments themselves signal, I think, a stronger stance by Iran.
At least that’s what we can judge from the surface.
Asbed Bedrossian: Yeah. Yeah. I tend to agree. Do you have any updates on the state of the war between the U.S. and Israel and Iran?
Hovik Manucharyan: No. I mean, other than the news on the Strait of Hormuz, I think everyone is in a waiting pattern. It’s clear that Iran is definitely nowhere near defeated in this war. So all of these developments going on around the region, I personally would not believe that there would be a deal between Iran and the U.S. at this point in time.
Asbed Bedrossian: Yeah, I think the current ceasefire is actually because the US and Israel are very low on their ammunition stockpiles and they’re just reloading. So they’re using every opportunity to claim that there is a possibility of a deal and let’s stop, let’s not bomb. I mean, the most ridiculous thing that I read, I think it was last week from Trump, was that he had canceled extensive bombings of Iran. It’s like canceling a movie showing or something like that.
Hovik Manucharyan: Is his ballroom still on schedule? But yeah, I mean, the news about the stockpiles was pretty funny, right? Because essentially there are reports that he went ballistic when he found out that actually the U.S. stockpiles are low. And he got angry at Hegseth, who blamed his deputy.
I would say, I think I read a comment somewhere, if either Hegseth or Trump were competent enough as leaders, they would know a long time before Trump announced that he’s going to attack Iran that, you know, actually we don’t have the weapons, sir, to attack Iran right at this moment. So let’s let’s announce a, you know, a cancellation for now.
Asbed Bedrossian: Yeah, let’s move on.
Hovik Manucharyan: Let’s come to Armenia. And, you know, over the past six years, I think we have covered developments in Armenia. Unfortunately, recording one shameful event after another in Armenia under the leadership of Nikol Pashinyan. I should say de facto leadership because I don’t accept him as a leader of Armenia.
But perhaps nothing can come close to declaring that Artsakh is Armenia and that’s it. And then instigating a horrible war, mismanaging it, causing the deaths of thousands of our young boys, and then simply saying, our stuff was never ours, you know, you’re just gaslighting the public. But this week, the sights this week of the Catholicos of All Armenians, the Vehapar, being dragged to court for Activities that are fully within the auspices, within his own authority, his own mandate, which is to defrock a misbehaving priest and to appoint others.
It’s a shame and it’s as great an affront to Armenians, at least emotionally, as anything else that Pashinyan has done. And I mean Armenians across the world, because the Armenian Apostolic Church is not only the church The details of the case are essentially when Pashinyan recruited one of the bishops to support him in an effort to unseat the Catholicos. The Catholicos essentially defrocked the priest. Actually not defrock him, but he demoted that priest as the head of the Masyatsotn Diocese and appointed another bishop instead.
And essentially what the government is charging criminally against the Catholicos is that the Catholicos’ order to demote the misbehaving bishop and appoint another one is somehow criminal. But anyway, the ugly sight was that we all had to watch as the Catholicos was in court.
Asbed Bedrossian: Hovik, can I just interrupt for just a second? Let’s restate one simple fact on this issue. The Catholicos of All Armenians has complete and final say on who is a primate of a diocese and who is frocked or defrocked, whatever the situation is. There is no legal review.
There is no scrutiny. He has complete and final say on those appointments. So that’s the end of that. It’s kind of like the Catholicos were to argue when Pashinyan appoints his chief of staff.
It just doesn’t make any sense, right? And here, the government somehow got involved to the point where they had this bishop suing the church, saying that he needed to be reinstated. And of course, We know that the judicial system is packed with cronies of Pashinyan, and this judge actually agreed with the suit and said, yes, he should be reinstated. There’s zero basis for any of this to happen.
Any normal judge would have thrown this out of the court and said, there’s no case here.
Hovik Manucharyan: I’m not a lawyer, but imagine, you know, I know U.S. employment law and employment law in general, right? At the worst case, even if we, let’s say, give all the benefit of the doubt to this errant bishop, this should have been a matter of the Armenian Church paying reparations to this bishop if he lost any salary because of his demotion. This shouldn’t have been a criminal case. I’m pretty sure it’s farcical and it will go nowhere.
In the worst case, the Armenian Church would have to pay reparations, but that’s employment law, that’s civil law. The Church has authorities enshrined in the Constitution. And what happened also is that the
Hovik Manucharyan: I guess they have a smell for saving their own skin, right? The presiding judge recused himself from the case, claiming a conflict of interest, because he had obtained his lawyer’s license at the time from the head of the National Bar Association, and that head is currently representing the Catholicos. So what is this conflict of interest, Asbed?
Asbed Bedrossian: You know, I’m laughing. Because I could not see what the conflict of interest is. I think the reality is that this judge did not want his name associated with this shameful lawsuit, which is going to go down Armenian history, right? You’ve dragged a Catholicos to court, and you’re going to drag him through the mud.
And he realized this. This judge realized this and said, I just don’t want to be part of this. I don’t want my name associated with this. So he’s getting out of it.
Hovik Manucharyan: So what’s funny is in today’s Armenia, in the Constitutional Court, which is the highest legal body in Armenia, one of the judges was a member of a party and an MP candidate for one of the parties that is actually a plaintiff in a case against the elections. And in that case, This judge did not see a reason to recuse herself, but now apparently because he received his license not from the Bar Association, but from the lawyer who was the head of the Bar Association at the time, he cited this cockamamie excuse that, okay, there’s a conflict of interest. So it’s pretty funny. So what’s next here?
Asbed Bedrossian: What’s the next step?
Hovik Manucharyan: I think they’re going to appoint another judge. Essentially, they might find a compliant judge. And this time, I think Pashinyan won’t be forgiving. In fact, I don’t have any high hopes for Hakob Manukyan’s career just in case, because Pashinyan is not very nice to people who go against his orders.
And he has always said, is there a judge in Armenia who will go against what I say? So let’s wait and see what criminal charges they find.
Asbed Bedrossian: It’s going to be interesting to see it. You know, in the meantime, just about everyone outside of the government has slammed this attack on the church. You know, I’ll speak for the diaspora, the ANC, the AGBU, the Assembly, dioceses, prelacies, the Catholicos of Cilicia, Aram I, and there’s also the World Council of Churches, the Patriarch of Constantinople, Istanbul, Everybody has denounced this, and yet this government continues as if, you know, it is the sole holder of truth.
Hovik Manucharyan: It’s shameful, and we join the condemnations. You know, we wish the Catholicos success, and we wish Armenians success, because those two are both the same in this case.
Asbed Bedrossian: Hovik, is it the law or is it part of the Constitution that the Parliament, a new convocation of the Parliament, must be blessed by the Catholicos?
Hovik Manucharyan: I’m not sure. I think it’s more a tradition, but Pashinyan has violated traditions left and right. So there was another tradition where right before New Year’s Eve or right before New Year’s on New Year’s Eve, the Catholic Church also was supposed to give an address and they removed that address. Now only Pashinyan gives an address before New Year’s.
And it’s just a continued affront. And at that time, there was no, you know, HR lawsuits or there was no other pretenses. You know, we talked about this with Mikaelian. I believe that there is truth to that, that he’s essentially fulfilling orders from Baku.
I mean, I know it’s difficult to believe, but I see no other beneficiary than our enemies in Baku and Ankara.
Asbed Bedrossian: That’s where
Hovik Manucharyan: we are.
Hovik Manucharyan: Let’s move from Pashinyan’s dilly-dallying with the Armenian court system to Pashinyan dilly-dallying in Kyrgyzstan. Last week, there was a Eurasian Economic Union meeting, a prime ministerial meeting in Cholpon-Ata in Kyrgyzstan. And what’s notable about this meeting is that it is a mundane working meeting, not attended by any other state. Normally, Armenia would send Mher Grigoryan, but Pashinyan, as Armenia’s head of state, decided to attend.
Of course, all the other states were represented by number twos in the government. And we know that Pashinyan has been trying to get any opportunity to meet with Putin, and the best he got was a phone call. So I think this was an opportunity also to secure some meetings with Mishustin, maybe. But so far, I think no luck.
And the background to this is that on May 29th, it was the official summit of the Eurasian Economic Union, which Pashinyan boycotted essentially. The heads of the EAEU made a statement demanding that Armenia promptly hold a referendum on leaving the Eurasian Economic Union and joining the European Union because those two are quite naturally mutually exclusive. This call was also repeated, I would say, quite sternly by Putin during the last meeting, phone conversation they had with Pashinyan. Now, Pashinyan says, yeah, it’s mutually exclusive, but we’re not leaving at this moment in time.
It’s all right essentially to derive all the benefits of Eurasian Economic Union while we chart our course towards the EU. Russia and all the other EAEU members are saying that they are not ready to do preferential business with Armenia while it’s preparing its exit from the Union.
Hovik Manucharyan: So, Asbed, what are your thoughts? Anything that caught your eye? How long can Armenia hold the situation of trying to sit on both chairs at once?
Asbed Bedrossian: That’s a very interesting question, and I don’t have a good answer. It seems to me that we are way past the point where some of these Eurasian Economic Union countries would tolerate Armenia doing this. This is continuing at this point until at some point somebody’s patience breaks and I don’t know when that’s going to happen. Now, I am not taking many of these threats and back and forth terribly consequentially, or I can’t say that I’m not taking it seriously because there are real farmers and there are real industrials who are hurting in Armenia.
But as long as Russia hasn’t cut off the remittances from Russia to Armenia, I think that that’s a final step. And that’s going to be the straw that breaks the camel’s back, Hovik, because something like two or three or four billion dollars a year enter Armenia through those remittances. It is the primary reason that economists have told us for the stability of the dram through war, through pandemics, through everything, ups and downs in the economy.
And if that were to stop, I think Armenia would be in free fall because you and I know the amount of borrowing that goes on by the Pashinyan government, something on the order of eight billion dollars in the last eight years. I don’t know how long Armenia can stay afloat if Russia were to take those extreme actions.
Hovik Manucharyan: There’s also, I think we should not forget that Armenia derives at least a billion dollars in economic benefits from Russian gas sales to Armenia at discount prices. We should not forget that the lifetime of the Armenian nuclear power plant has been reduced by five years. With this AI data center that Armenia is planning to set up, energy is going to be very important, and even gas energy is going to be very important. But I was just trying to follow the news from Kyrgyzstan.
And I don’t understand why Pashinyan went in the first place. I saw no news about his announcements except I caught one interview he gave to the press on the sidelines, and he basically said that one of the heads of the EAEU once challenged us and told us that we have nowhere to go, and I think he was referring to Lukashenko, and he said, so we didn’t take that negatively, and we tried to take positive action on that. It seems like he was saying, you know, in spite of Lukashenko, he’s leaving the Eurasian Economic Union, but what is the benefit to Armenia of doing this? I can’t comprehend.
Asbed Bedrossian: Yeah, you can’t have country policy running on personal impulses and things like that. But, Hovik, you brought a point that is, I think, very important for Armenia, and that has to do with energy. I don’t have any real evidence, just my hunch that Russian patience will end when, if and when Armenia decides to get a non-Russian nuclear power plant. That’s what I think.
If they were to decide to get an American or a French or some kind of a nuclear power plant, I think Russia will decide. Armenia has made its decision.
Hovik Manucharyan: There’s no more And that’s a 30 year decision. That’s a half a century decision. But it will be
Asbed Bedrossian: made at some point. It’s not going to be made over 30 years. It’s going to be made at some point in the next few years, let’s say, because the current nuclear power plant is extended until 2036. It takes five to six to seven years to build one of these things.
So you have a couple of years to make that decision to make your deadlines.
Hovik Manucharyan: Actually, to 2031, not 2036. Is that true?
Asbed Bedrossian: I thought that the lifespan has been extended to 2036.
Hovik Manucharyan: No, there was an option for Armenia to do that, but I think it is the Armenian side. But only if you engage Russian Rosatom in the service of the nuclear station.
Asbed Bedrossian: Oh, so you’re saying they might decline extending it to 2036. So you might actually end at 2031. That’s true.
Hovik Manucharyan: Yeah, right now, I think 2031 is the date on the table. I mean, just like, you know, you shoot yourself in the foot, then you shoot yourself in the left foot, and then maybe you shoot yourself in the head. I don’t know what these policies have to do with one other, other than just satisfying. Just like, you know, why would you join the Rome Statute and obligate your country to arrest Putin if he ever steps foot in Armenia?
These are suicidal moves, and I just don’t see it. Anyway.
Asbed Bedrossian: Hovik, August 8, over this past weekend, marked the one-year anniversary of the meeting in the White House between Aliyev and Pashinyan as they initialed some kind of an agreement in the presence of Trump. Pashinyan talked with Trump as well as Aliyev, and then Marco Rubio had wonderful things to say about the TRIPP. And they issued a joint declaration on the one year anniversary of this project. Meanwhile, Aliyev’s aide, Hikmet Hajiyev, said that Baku is receiving signals from Yerevan that the process will soon be launched for a referendum to change the Armenian constitution per their demands.
You know, I don’t know. I guess that process is still afoot. Separately, while Pashinyan was talking to Aliyev, Trump and Aliyev also had their own phone call. And this one seemed a little more consequential as Trump invited Aliyev to the upcoming G20 summit in Miami, Florida.
Did you see the press release from Washington inviting Pashinyan to that meeting also?
Hovik Manucharyan: No, and I didn’t see a press release for that other guy as well. So, you know, definitely…
Asbed Bedrossian: Well, international beggars are not invited to the G20 summit. So what do we know?
Asbed Bedrossian: What do we know about Pashinyan’s plans to change the constitution? How do you think he’s going to make it when he doesn’t have two thirds majority in the parliament?
Hovik Manucharyan: They are already making a change of law or making efforts to change laws so that to exclude Armenian I think the opposition leadership, keeping them in jail, Reducing the citizens of Armenia who can vote. And of course, as I said, they’ll ban the opposition parties. I think that’s what will happen. But how long do they have to do that or when they exactly plan on doing that?
It could be in a few months. It could be in six months or even later. I’m not sure.
Asbed Bedrossian: Yeah. Yeah. Well, we’ll see how it goes. It’s going to be a lot of legal juggling to exclude the Armenian population from having a say in this matter.
Asbed Bedrossian: Earlier in the week, Steve Witkoff’s advisor, Aryeh Lightstone, and Trump’s appointed TRIPP enterprise development leader, Konstantin Sokolov, were in Yerevan, meeting with Pashinyan. I didn’t find any details. That were given about the real nature of these discussions. Everything was basically pablum-y, and they said accelerating the TRIPP project was what was discussed, etc, etc.
One comment that I got from Pashinyan is that he is absolutely ready to explain to their partners in Tehran. Take care of their concerns about the TRIPP project. At the same time as ANC leader, the Armenian National Congress leader Levon Zurabyan, this is an opposition leader, Levon Zurabyan was in Tehran and he quoted unnamed officials who told him that Iran is not satisfied with Armenia’s assurances and that they remain very negative about the TRIPP. He said that Iranian sources have told him, he didn’t reveal his sources, but I have absolutely zero reason to doubt Levon Zurabyan.
He said that the unnamed officials in Tehran said, if we see this as a threat to our national security, we will act the way we did in the Persian Gulf. So they will turn Syunik into a complete battleground. And that’s, I’m afraid that that may be exactly where we’re headed.
Hovik Manucharyan: Yeah, unfortunately, I don’t have anything to add to that aspect. I mean, I share your concerns and I think most Armenians share your concerns.
Asbed Bedrossian: Hovik, who is this Aryeh Lightstone person?
Hovik Manucharyan: So he is Witkoff’s advisor, right? And at the same time, he’s an Orthodox rabbi. He was senior advisor to the U.S. Ambassador to Israel from 2017 to 2021.
Benjamin Netanyahu actually considered to appoint him as his campaign chief for 2021 elections. And it’s funny, right? You know, one day you’re a U.S. diplomat and next day you’re a campaign chief for the Israeli president. That’s aside.
But I think in the Armenian world and in the Middle Eastern world, he’s essentially known to be one of the key architects of the Abraham Accords. In 2020, I think he was appointed as a special envoy for economic normalization for the Abraham Accords. And this is important because I think he’s essentially the mover and shaker behind whatever Witkoff does. If we go back to August 2025, We remember that Witkoff went to Russia to arrange this Anchorage summit between Russia and the United States.
And just a few days later, they announced TRIPP. So I believe, and I’m one of those people who believe that TRIPP could have been discussed with Russia, meaning that, okay, you led us to TRIPP. And we’ll leave you alone in Ukraine, or maybe we’ll not give Ukraine as deadly weapons as possible. I’m not sure.
I mean, I don’t have any evidence to prove that officially, but I think that may have been a deal that Russians fell for.
Asbed Bedrossian: Well, with all these connections between Lightstone and Israel, I’m starting to suspect that there is a strong Israeli push behind the Zangezur Corridor. You know, with the relationship between Israel and Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan basically made whatever concessions they needed to do, and they asked Israel to push on the U.S. so that this TRIPP project would come to fruition. I mean, the key beneficiary of this project is not Armenia.
It is Azerbaijan and then Azerbaijan
Hovik Manucharyan: and Turkey. And Israel, of course. I think that many analysts already were confident that this was an Israeli project, but as we said earlier in the show, the Abraham Accords seem to be not going anywhere right now, with the Iran war going on, with Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan joining forces.
Asbed Bedrossian: Hovik, let’s make a couple of parliamentary updates. You want to start us off?
Hovik Manucharyan: So Aram Vardevanyan from Strong Armenia. He was elected as Deputy Speaker of the Parliament. He has been a guest on the Groong podcast before. Now, the rules mandate that one of three Deputy Speakers must be a member of the opposition.
So essentially, he was the token opposition candidate. And he is one of the most, I would say, diplomatic. So he used very careful language. And I think that was probably a tactic by Samvel Karapetyan himself and Strong Armenia. 53 votes were needed to approve his nomination and 53 MPs in total voted.
Basically Civil Contract provided just enough votes so exactly he meets the threshold and becomes the deputy speaker, one of the deputy speakers of the Armenian National Assembly. This is a situation that is different from 2021 when Civil Contract boycotted any candidate for Deputy Speaker. And essentially I believe that the Armenian National Assembly had only two Deputy Speakers because the opposition was shut out completely. In any case, I think it’s good to have Aram Vardevanyan as Deputy Speaker.
Were you surprised that Anna Grigoryan was not proposed as Deputy Speaker by any chance?
Asbed Bedrossian: I thought there might be actually two submissions from the opposition and that she might be the other person. So I was a little surprised that her candidacy was not proposed, but it’s okay because we know from her that she is in a mode where she is learning her ways and I think that we can expect more from her at some point. Maybe not today and tomorrow, maybe not this convocation, but I expect that good things will happen throughout.
Hovik Manucharyan: Yeah, I mean, given that she’s been a firebrand, I believe, in criticizing the civil contract regime, and she has had a history with them, yeah, I think they would boycott her vote. So Aram Vardevanyan it is. But Aram Vardevanyan is a very, I would say, skilled lawyer. I don’t mean to diminish his election, but I think it’s going to be difficult to accomplish anything in this parliament anyway, because I don’t know what you can do as one of the three deputy speakers of parliament in a Civil Contract-controlled parliament.
Asbed Bedrossian: I guess you can vote together on zoning laws or something. I don’t know.
Hovik Manucharyan: Let me just say this, Mr. Vardevanyan, I wish you good, strong nerves, get a lot of sleep because you will need it. Yeah, and come back and talk
Asbed Bedrossian: with us on the show.
Hovik Manucharyan: Yeah.
Asbed Bedrossian: Hovik, so the 12 standing committees were voted on and set up. They oversee various aspects of the Armenian government. We’ll put them in the show notes. Just pay attention to how in all cases the combined opposition presence in these committees is less than half, so that even if we allowed a ruling party rogue person to actually not vote with the ruling party, they would still win the vote.
So in essence, basically, you’re seeing that the opposition has no voice in these committees. No vote in these subcommittees will ever go the way of the opposition. Just very quickly, I’m not going to read all of them. They will be in the show notes.
But for example, Defense and Security has 10 members. Six of them are from Civil Contract. Three of them are from Strong Armenia and one from the Armenia Alliance. So it’s actually six and four.
And that means even if there was one person who did not agree with the ruling party, it would still be a five to four vote and they would win. The interesting thing is that Vilen Gabrielyan was appointed as the chairman of this committee. It used to be Andranik Kocharyan, right?
Hovik Manucharyan: Yeah.
Asbed Bedrossian: But I guess he’s kind of on the outs with Pashinyan. There have been a lot of problems over the last five years.
Hovik Manucharyan: It looks like he’s quietly walking into the sunset. Well, he’s still an MP, right?
Asbed Bedrossian: I believe he’s still in the parliament in this convocation.
Hovik Manucharyan: Yeah.
Asbed Bedrossian: What else happened this week?
Hovik Manucharyan: They get very good pay. I’m just going to mention that addressing the parliament,
Hovik Manucharyan: Narek Karapetyan outlined the Strong Armenia platform, and he framed Historical Armenia as a vital cultural fact, while the state must focus exclusively on today’s sovereign borders. Socially, the party adopts a conservative stance centered on traditional family values. Geared to drive demographic growth. Economically, they champion a liberal model by active state intervention.
I’ll just leave it at the other. They have a lot of plans to create new jobs, but again, in a parliament where they are a minority, I fail to see how they would have any way of implementing their promises. So I think what we need to just basically watch out for is,
Hovik Manucharyan: unfortunately, more tensions in the parliament and perhaps even new elections. I honestly would not give this parliament the full five years that they have been elected for.
Asbed Bedrossian: That’s interesting. I am not so sure they won’t go. I mean, we talked a little bit about the evolution of this parliament from an opposition that is primarily dominated by Artsakh nationalists, let’s say, to business realists. And if that were to continue with what Narek Karapetyan has outlined today in the parliament, there is a certain amount of pragmatism that could set in.
You know, the ruling party and the opposition might have some grounds of collaboration, let’s say, on the business front. Who knows?
Hovik Manucharyan: They have put some pretty clear stakes in terms of Artsakh, in terms of the church. So unless Strong Armenia is willing to back away from those claims and allow Pashinyan to do that, which would be Those may not be the only places that they’re going to have to
Asbed Bedrossian: Make compromises. For example, they don’t have to compromise on Artsakh. They don’t have to compromise on human rights. What they might have to find grounds to discuss is where Samvel Karapetyan brings a huge amount of political and economic cachet with the Russians.
This is a place where the ruling party, Civil Contract and Pashinyan specifically are bankrupt. They are unable to talk to Russia. And maybe Strong Armenia can find some language, thereby the ruling party is starting to compromise on certain things domestically to achieve those aims. Who knows?
I don’t know. Like I said, it’ll be interesting to watch what happens in the coming months. I’m not as optimistic as those ideas.
Hovik Manucharyan: But let’s watch and see. Yeah, but I think it’s important to… I just don’t see how. Essentially, Pashinyan got himself in a pile of shit, and Samvel Karapetyan is supposed to drag Pashinyan out while he’s in jail, while the rest of the opposition is in jail.
Well, in exchange
Asbed Bedrossian: for certain things. Yeah. You scratch my back, I’ll scratch your back.
Hovik Manucharyan: I think we have to realize that this is not Armenia’s agency anymore. Armenia’s policy is being dictated by the EU, and as long as that’s true, then I don’t see any compromise towards Russia from Armenia. So that’s my simple, perhaps, but that’s my simple view of things.
Asbed Bedrossian: Hovik, I started with a section which I thought would be interesting to do every week. Now, I kind of don’t want to do it at all. I called it Corruption and Persecutions in Armenia. It’s because on the corruption front, I read that Deputy Speaker Hayk Konjoryan’s wife, Shushan Aleksanyan, is making $10,000 a month, being the executive director of HayPost.
And there was a back and forth about this in the parliament. And it’s ridiculous because most of the employees who are working at HayPost don’t make, I don’t know, one fifteenth of that very small amount.
Hovik Manucharyan: These are astronomical salaries. I don’t know what the salary of HayPost executive was.
Asbed Bedrossian: Ten thousand dollars a month is good money in the United States.
Hovik Manucharyan: If you ask what the profit margin or what the balance books for HayPost were, let’s just say that their revenues have shrunk, but that her salary has not. And of course, Ararat Mirzoyan’s wife, Ararat Mirzoyan is the foreign minister, his wife runs Enterprise Armenia, which she also apparently landed through job contest.
Asbed Bedrossian: I’d like to quote that job contest, because in both cases, these two significant others, wives or whatever, they won their jobs through a job contest. And I’ll tell you more about those job contests in a moment.
Hovik Manucharyan: I feel bad because, you know, we want to support women’s rights and we want to be able to be confident and state that these women actually earned that position outright. But I’m not sure we can state that confidently right now.
Asbed Bedrossian: No, we can’t because as far as I could read about these job contests, nobody knew about them. Nobody knew if anybody else had applied to these things. Nobody knows anything about how these salaries were arrived at. So everything is just basically shoved under the rug.
And as you were saying about the HayPost revenues, they’ve been shrinking something on the order of about 7% in the last year, and their debt has increased sixfold. The debt levels of HayPost have gone through the roof. Meanwhile, the same with the management salaries. They’ve skyrocketed something like 28%.
Tell us about persecutions. Tell us about persecutions.
Hovik Manucharyan: We make fun of it, but I mean, I don’t know. Should we cry about it?
Asbed Bedrossian: Otherwise, we’ll just have to grow zits or tumors, like Woody Allen would say.
Hovik Manucharyan: So another thing not to make fun of is that the government continues to pile charges on Gagik Tsarukyan and his deputies. He’s unrelenting on this matter. I don’t think he’s ever going to forgive Tsarukyan, maybe until he’s finally stripped him of all his businesses. But Tsarukyan is filing countersuits, but it’s the same modus operandi for the government.
File lots of frivolous lawsuits and then let them fight their way back. Keep them busy in the courts. Another case of persecution is Anna Mkrtchyan’s father. She was MP in the previous convocation from the Republican Party of Armenia and he’s being charged with corruption and fraud.
Now, Anna was another one of those firebrands in the Armenian parliament that the Pashinyan regime couldn’t figure out how to deal with. They, at one point, dragged her by her hair from parliament just to shut her up. So I think this is payback time. I think that’s how Pashinyan views the results of these elections.
You know, there was news that Davit Ghazinyan, who is an MP, by the way, he is the brother of Artur Ghazinyan, who was an MP in the former convocation with Hayastan Dashink, Now their father has been fired from his job. He’s one of the top legal experts in Armenia and he was teaching at Yerevan State University and they decided to cancel his contract. So, you know, we talked to Pietro about Stalinism. Now, I mean, short of executing people in offices and torturing them, I mean, the effect is the same.
They’re removing anyone who is able to speak and punishing people, punishing their opponents in any way possible, including firing family members. We’ve seen many cases of that. We talked about Lilit Ghazaryan, sister of Edgar Ghazaryan , who is also an MP. She lost her job.
Arpine Soghoyan, mother of the Tatevik Soghoyan, who is a lawyer for the opposition and who is also a very outspoken opposition member herself, her mother was fired from her job in a clinic. She’s a doctor. And apparently Pashinyan doesn’t need doctors when their politics clash with yours. Pashinyan has announced that he will complete the nationalization or state ownership of the Electric Networks of Armenia, which used to belong, which still legally belongs to Samvel Karapetyan.
And we know that under international arbitration, they ruled against Pashinyan, against the Armenian government, but the Armenian government simply ignored the ruling of the arbitration court. So that’s what’s going on in Armenia, folks.
Asbed Bedrossian: These are the peace dividends, Hovik. And of course, we’re getting peace dividends from Baku as well, right? Because an Azerbaijani Court of Appeals just this week upheld the lengthy life sentences that they’ve given to Armenian POWs in Baku. And this is just as a big fuck you to Armenians so that they can remind you worldwide that they have these Artsakh Armenian leaders in their jails rotting.
Hovik Manucharyan: I know this can be depressing, folks. This is depressing, but help us and help yourself by channeling your energy towards positive things.
Hovik Manucharyan: One positive thing you can do is you can contribute to Groong financially if you have the means, podcast.groong.org/donate. And if you don’t have the means, then maybe consider liking, sharing and commenting. We are doing our best to channel our energy in a positive manner. Thank you for all your contributions.
Thank you for all your support. I’m Hovik Manucharyan.
Asbed Bedrossian: And I’m Asbed Bedrossian, and we’ll talk to you next week.