Guests of Groong Podcast

Sergei Melkonian

Dr. Sergei Melkonian is currently a Research Fellow at APRI Armenia, a Yerevan-based think tank. He served as assistant to President of Armenia, Armen Sarkissian, on foreign policy (Middle East and post-Soviet space). Sergei is also a guest lecturer at Yerevan State University and the Russian-Armenian University.

Setrag Balian

Setrag Balian is a Jerusalemite Armenian activist and co-founder of the Save The ArQ movement.

Sopo Japaridze

Sopo Japaridze is the chair of Solidarity Network, an independent care workers union in Georgia. She has been a labor organizer for over a decade. She researches and studies labor and social relations and writes for various publications. She is cofounder of the Reimagining Soviet Georgia podcast.

Stanislav Krapivnik

Stanislav Krapivnik is a former US Army officer, supply chain exec and military-political expert, now based in Russia. He was born in Lugansk during the Soviet times, migrated to the US as a child, served in the US army, did not like what it was doing in former Yugoslavia, quit, and returned to Russia. Mr. Krapivnik is an independent contractor and consults and appears in the international media in his areas of expertise in military matters, NATO, America, history, economics and supply chains.

Suren Sargsyan

Suren Sargsyan is the founder and President at the Armenian Center for American Studies, a research center based in Yerevan.

Tatev Hayrapetyan

Hayrapetyan is an expert in Azerbaijani studies and holds a PhD in History. She was an MP at the 7th convocation of Armenia’s National Assembly. Being involved in the activities of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs she was also a member of the Armenian Delegation at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. She is mainly focused on domestic developments in Azerbaijan, particularly examining the impact of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict on internal politics. She is co-author of one monograph, the author of two monographs, and more than 40 scientific and analytical articles.

Tatul Manaseryan

Dr. Tatul Manaseryan, is an economist and academic, as well as a national and state actor in Armenia. Dr. Manaseryan is an MP from the 3rd convocation of the national assembly (2003-2007). He appears regularly in the media and speaks on economic matters.

Tevan Poghosyan

Tevan Poghosyan is president of the International Center for Human Development. Mr. Poghosyan was an MP in the National Assembly between 2012 and 2017 from the Heritage party. From 1997 to 1999 he served as the Nagorno-Karabakh Public Affairs Office Director in Washington, D.C.

Trita Parsi

Dr. Trita Parsi is Executive Vice President of the Quincy Institute, where he advances a vision of U.S. foreign policy grounded in restraint and diplomacy. An influential Washington policy thinker, he has been named one of the capital’s 25 most influential voices on foreign policy by Washingtonian magazine each year since 2021.

A recipient of the 2010 Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order, Parsi is the author of four widely praised books on U.S. policy in the Middle East, including Losing an Enemy: Obama, Iran, and the Triumph of Diplomacy (Yale, 2017). His work combines rigorous scholarship with direct experience in international institutions, including service at Sweden’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations, where he handled Security Council matters on Iraq and Afghanistan.

Born in Iran and raised in Sweden, Parsi earned a Ph.D. in International Relations from Johns Hopkins SAIS, studying under Francis Fukuyama and Zbigniew Brzezinski. He previously co-founded and led the National Iranian American Council and has taught at Georgetown, NYU, and Johns Hopkins.

Parsi’s insights appear regularly in The Washington Post, New York Times, and Financial Times, and he is a frequent guest on CNN, BBC, NPR, and Al Jazeera.