Sergei Melkonian - Israel & Iran, Crackdown on Opposition, Pashinyan in Istanbul | Ep 449, June 22, 2025

Groong Week in Review - June 22, 2025

This Week in Review episode features Sergei Melkonian and covers a turbulent week in Armenia and the region. As Israel and the U.S. launched a short but intense war on Iran, Armenia found itself navigating heightened regional risks, a rising refugee flow, and diplomatic silence. Meanwhile, domestically, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan escalated a political and cultural confrontation with the Armenian Church, arresting billionaire Samvel Karapetyan after he publicly defended the clergy. Dozens of opposition figures were also detained, including members of the ARF and the Srbazan Movement. As Pashinyan visited Istanbul for a quiet meeting with Erdogan—coinciding with an anti-Armenian declaration by the OIC—his government cracked down at home, drawing criticism for politicizing national security and purging dissent.

Topics

• Israel and Iran
• Crackdown on the Opposition
• Pashinyan in Istanbul
• The Kitchen Sink

Guest

• Sergei Melkonian

Hosts

• Hovik Manucharyan
• Asbed Bedrossian

Episode 449 | Recorded: June 25, 2025

SHOW NOTES: https://podcasts.groong.org/449

VIDEO: https://youtu.be/KqlQ13gkIIc

#IranIsraelWar #ZangezurCorridor #SamvelKarapetyan #ChurchCrackdown #SrbazanMovement

Subscribe and follow us everywhere you are: linktr.ee/groong

Transcript

0:04

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Armenian News Network Groong Week in Review for June 22, 2025. We're a little late recording this thing, so it's June 25 right now, Wednesday, June 25. So we'll include more developments than what happened until Sunday. Today, we're going to talk with Dr. Sergei Melkonian, a research fellow at APRI Armenia in Yerevan. Hello, Sergei. Welcome back to the Groong Podcast. Hello, thank you for inviting. Welcome, Sergei. Okay, well, there's been a lot of coverage on what's being called the 12-day war, which Israel launched on Ten days in, Trump joined the war with B-2 bombers dropping bunker busters on Iran's nuclear enrichment sites. Then Trump declared the ceasefire on Truth Social, yelled at Netanyahu for not observing the ceasefire, praised both sides, posted a flood of selfies, and declared Israel safer than ever, and voila, mission accomplished. Now, Israel and the U.S. went against every intelligence community report that Iran was not pursuing a nuclear program. And frankly, at present, it's not known where Iran's enriched uranium went. Plus, Iran has had it with the IAEA and is banning them from access to its sites. Anyway, a ceasefire was implemented by 9 p.m. Pacific on Monday. Sergei, the question is, if every justification in the world was not enough to show that Iran is not pursuing a nuclear weapons program, then maybe the nuclear weapons program was not the target here. What were the goals of the U.S. and Israel in Iran? That's very interesting and maybe the most important question to understand what's going on in the Middle East. So to understand what are the real goals of Israel, let's try to divide them in two parts. The first one is internal. The second one is external. So coming to domestic politics, Israeli domestic politics. Obviously, for Netanyahu, it was extremely important to increase the level of support and try to unite Israelis around himself, because as we know, since October 2023, Netanyahu faced several problems. First, his main, let's call, emploi or legend as a Mr. Security was smashed because he was not able to secure Israel from maybe the biggest failure for the last decades. For him, it was important first to bring back the support from Israelis because he wasn't able to achieve the goals in Gaza. So officially, Israel has three goals in Gaza. for more than one year and a half. First, to destroy, dismantle Hamas military infrastructure. Second, to destroy Hamas as an organization. And the third, the most important, to bring back hostages home. And the last point was the most significant and the most important point in Israeli internal agenda. And Netanyahu actually failed to do so. And he was not able also to achieve the first two goals. And when the level of support Netanyahu reduced, he tried to increase the bar. and make pressure against Hezbollah, against Houthis, etc., and try to unite the Israeli society around himself. And now he was able to achieve the biggest goal, because the Iranian case is the only and the unique in Israel, because this is the only case on which there is a consensus among Israeli society. and this is why we had a we were able to see the really wide support both from opposition and from wider society that were criticizing Netanyahu because of he failed in Gaza because of his legal reforms etc so he was he was trying to achieve two goals first to uh rebuild or regain uh the mr security label that he is the only one who can secure Israel. And the second is to survive internally, politically, because Israel is preparing for upcoming elections that will take place next year. So these are two most important goals in terms of domestic politics. Externally, officially Israel, Netanyahu, his speech, he... are aligned two key goals. First, to dismantle Iranian ballistic missile infrastructure, and the second, to destroy Iranian nuclear facilities, Iranian nuclear program. And then we saw that not at the highest level, not officially, but they also declared one more goal to change the regime in Iran. Sara Netanyahu told, so security high level officials also stated, so there were calls to resist address to Iranian society, et cetera, et cetera. So they had three primary goals. And actually, I'm not sure that Netanyahu achieved the first two goals. And obviously, he did not achieve the last goal. Because we know that Iranian ballistic missiles infrastructure program is not dismantled till the last day Iran was able to use its ballistic missiles. And the second goal, we don't have any proofs that even the last attack with the US support was successful one. So we say that he at least tried to reach two internal goals, but he failed to reach three external ones. On the obvious one, which is that, you know, failed that you said, which is regime change. During that war period, even Donald Trump posted TruthSocial messages suggesting regime change in Iran. i won't quote the full of it but he said maybe it's not such a bad idea to have regime change in Iran i'm paraphrasing him that u.s has signed off on on the regime change plans but then u.s officials downplayed that goal, and they said they reframed it as a possible outcome rather than a stated objective. And then just yesterday, June 24th, Trump appeared to completely reverse course and saying, I don't want regime change in Iran. But I'm pretty sure that in Israel, that is a very different story. And I'm just wondering, although I'm wondering if Israel will continue pursuing those goals covertly, and how likely do you see the success for such a goal in the coming months, years, and so forth? That's for sure. That's obvious that this is not the end of the story. This ceasefire is temporary. And we will wait for the next round. And obviously for Israel, this is the key security dilemma still. And Israel will try to do its best in order to push back Iran. We see that Iranian head of, Iranian Most probably they are discussing the purchase of aircrafts or air defense system. So we don't know. But we see how Iran quickly tries to recover in terms of security and military deterrence and defense. But to be honest, we should mention also the goal that Netanyahu actually achieved. So for Netanyahu, it was also very important to bring back the United States as a key strategic ally. Because in last month, he did a lot of mistakes. For example, Donald Trump, when we visited the Middle East, we didn't visit the state of Israel. So when Trump had a deal with Saudi Arabia, he did not bring Israel to this deal, and they did not sign an Abraham Accord, and it was planned. Then Trump or the United States, they had the direct talks with Hamas about the U.S. citizen hostage to bring back him. And Israel was really, really angry about this story. fourth uh u.s launched uh negotiations with them with iran uh without engaging israel and they were discussing only ballistic uh nuclear problem but not ballistic missile as israel was insisting for a long have they have agreed with Houthis about security of all about their ships but not israeli So that were indicators that there is some crack in US-Israel alliance. And then in Israel, there were a lot of discussions that maybe Israel should think about diversification in security policy and But by this step, Netanyahu was able to not restore, but to qualitatively change the current dynamic. And coming to what Israel may do regarding Iran, obviously, Israel would try to restore its air defense capabilities. Israel will try to strengthen its military, technical military security cooperation with the United States. And obviously, the regime change in Israel will Because from their perspective, until there is a current regime in Iran, they are not safe. And they will feel the threat, both from Lebanon, from Yemen, from Gaza, from Iraq, etc. So for them, it's extremely important to not dismantle only this axis of resistance, but the core of resistance. And the core of resistance is Iran and the current regime that we have in Iran today. And it means that they also need to rebuild their capabilities on the ground inside Iran. As we know, hundreds of members of this Israeli spy network, they were arrested in Iran. And obviously, Iran will pay much more attention in internal security problems to try to find other some spy networks. It means that maybe for Israel it will be much more complicated to work inside Iran, but we do not know. And yes, they will follow this strategy because nothing changes. When we see the primary, the dominant discourse in Israeli society and the request from Israeli citizens that will go and vote next year, there is a security demand, a level of security demand, and all security is about Iran. And it means that maybe not in a short-term run, but in a mid-term run, we will see the new round of such war. Let me ask a quick question about internal politics. I think that despite the rising costs and outrage globally, Netanyahu still seems to enjoy the support of the public. Why does the Israeli public I mean, this is the common approach we have in all countries, when the society unites, when it's faced with the external enemy. But according to polls and different surveys in Israel, we see that, for example, the level of support of And maybe Naftali Bennett will be the key opponent. He's even more hardliner than Netanyahu, right? It depends. It depends on the case. He's also from the right wing. I mean, that's obvious. But he might be smarter than Netanyahu in some terms. Also within different internal affairs, because that was a big damage for Israel economy. having a war against Iran is much more expensive than having a war against Gaza. When we talk about this, all launchers, all missiles, etc., it's incomparable what kind of ammunition they used against Iran and what are they using in Gaza. So someone should pay for it. and if so it seems that Israel needs some smart solutions and Netanyahu is not able maybe to provide such because uh he is focused on his internal political survival because we know there are different criminal cases against him and some people around him so this why for him this In case of he's not a prime minister or he will lose election, one day he may be in jail. So it's much more complicated to have some smart solutions. So he's trying to have very quick and Sergei, you were talking a little bit about regime change possibilities a little earlier. And I was thinking, how is regime change possible But that got us thinking. Turkey and Azerbaijan are almost always conducting so-called military exercises near Armenia's southern borders. And around June 13, as Israel attacked Iran, as a matter of fact, these two countries were conducting military exercises in Nakhichevan. Usually, we Armenians will see these drills as aimed at Syunik, which those countries have been demanding But is it possible that these military exercises were providing the cover for amassing troops on the border with Iran mission of some sort? I will briefly cover the first part about the regime change. Okay. So we had an indicator of what Israel at least tried to do. First, he was targeting economic infrastructure, first energy infrastructure to destroy the Iranian economy, to trigger some social unrest. Second, they were targeting also prisons. then there was extremely high level propaganda in Farsi that tried to reach entire Iranian population. And the problem is there is no ready alternative as in different regime change. So there is no some counter elite. that will be able to replace, etc. So it means that they will try to work on the Iranian economy because that might be the weakest part for Iran today. Comparing, for example, I visited Iran this year and comparing my visit with last year, you may feel how the, and you may actually see, how there was a price changed, how did it change the level of lifestyle, etc. So that's maybe the weakest point that may trigger some unrest. Coming to what Turkey and Azerbaijan is doing. Yeah, you are right. So in Nakhijevan, they are conducting maybe fifth or sixth, their military drills within the last two months. Now, for example... From June 12th to June 19th, there was a military drill in Nakhijevan. Then, at the same time, they announced that from June 20th to June 30th, there will be a new military, 10 days military drill, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk 2025. And we see the increasing number of Turkey military presence in Nakhijevan. Um, and obviously the weakest part in this case is, uh, is, is the Syunik and why adsorb depends on, uh, which kind of plants, plants do they have? Because there are several parts of the, so, uh, several routes of the so-called Zangezur corridor. And now Azerbaijan and Turkey try to create an international legitimacy for this annexation and occupation. And they feel that the level of, not the level of support, but deterrence capabilities of Iran might be reduced somehow, at least temporary. And for them was extremely important to run into this window of opportunity. But as we see that at least the escalation now stopped. and it did not expand it they might postpone their plans somehow. So you think the risk is a little bit lower as of the ceasefire for Armenia? Yeah, for sure. Because also for Iran, Israeli plus U.S. attacks, they're existential in nature. So this is why they will pay more attention on that. And it means that maybe the readiness, the level of alarmism might reduce somehow when it comes to northern, as Israel, they use the northern arena, when it comes to Iranian northern borders. But when we talk with our Iranian colleagues, they reaffirmed that nothing has changed. The ground forces are at some level of alert. So they monitor everything what's happening from Turkey to Azerbaijan because different UAVs in Turkey, they were monitoring Armenian border, they were monitoring Turkey-Iran border. So they were on the ground and they were in a good level of alert. But the problem is with the decision-making process and the implementation of the decision-making. If you remember the first day of Israel attack, when Israel was able to assassinate key decision-makers, Iran was not able to respond very quickly. So it means that there was no person who may take this decision, put the button, and the mechanism work. So that might be the biggest challenge because it depends on the achievements on the first day in case of possible Azeri Turkey attack. If they have big achievements on the ground within the first day, that will be much more complicated to solve within coming days. Sergei, there have been acknowledgements from Iran as well as a number of international analysts that Israeli ISR has been bases, Israeli bases in southern Azerbaijan. These are the territories that were ethnically cleansed from Artsakh during the 2020 war. So what will Iran do with this knowledge? If they know that Azerbaijan is providing cover for these attacks on Iran, what do you perceive going forward? I had a conversation with the colleagues who indicated that and who spread this information. There are different sources. And according to some of them, first, as you mentioned, yes, part of Azerbaijani territory and part of Artsakh, they were used by Israel. And the problem is... the way that they used did they use only airspace or they used only for intelligence purpose etc so the first instrumentalize itself providing not maybe the ground but some other facilities and the second approach is Azerbaijan will not allow to instrumentalize itself for Netanyahu But if there is a request from the United States, Azerbaijan somehow may provide some assistance to Israel with an intelligence and within, for example, transfer of different parts of UAVs that Israeli spy network was using inside Iran. Because there was a reference in this information that an UAV was launched in northern part of Iran, bordering with Nakhijevan. So, and there was a discussion in Iran. Was this UAV launched from Nakhijevan? Or that it was the detailed came from Nakhijevan or from Azerbaijan or from Artsakh? And then they collected it and they used it in northern parts to monitor, because it will be much more complicated territory. For example, not far from Tehran, some of the places that were Iranian intelligence found. It means that maybe these companies, they were collected and were launched from the northern part of Iran. But also in this case, Azerbaijani territory might be used for some intelligence purposes or for transit purposes. But we also had statements from... And some leaders in the northern part of Iran from Tabriz just recently, maybe that was several days ago. And they also mentioned Azerbaijan in the same sentence with the United States, with Israel that are not so friendly. And also that was, I mean, in that sense, that was obvious that Azerbaijan somehow assisted them. And that might be the fail because for the last years, Azerbaijan was trying to demonstrate that Azerbaijan has nothing against Iran. And that's why, for example, they've conducted joint military drills in Artsakh. to demonstrate that there is zero some observe it your boots are on the ground you may see by your eyes that zero us zero Israeli or some other nato presence etc just to uh that was a confidence building measure from Azerbaijan but it means if we have such statements from Iran Because it's complicated to find proofs, like some screenshots, what was on the radars, etc. Obviously, that's not important. But if we have such statements from different opinion leaders from Iran, it means that Azerbaijan now in the radar and Iranian radar and this confidence building measure that Baku was following is not succeeding. Sergei, I think that we want to talk about one internal topic in Armenia, but from your perspective, because you spend a lot of time with circles in Moscow. So about a month ago, Nikol Pashinyan and Anna Hakobyan launched what many see as a religious war against the Armenian church, with Pashinyan openly calling to replace the Catholicos. His near daily attacks have gone increasingly vulgar and they dominate the Armenian media now, as if Armenia's challenges were, you know, so marginal before this. When billionaire Samvel Karapetyan spoke out in defense of the church, he's a dual Russian-Armenian citizen, he was quickly arrested. And he is now in solitary pretrial detention for two months. Even his family cannot visit him except like, I think twice a month. And then on June 13th, Pashinyan flew to Istanbul to meet Erdogan. And authorities at that time in Armenia arrested over 40 opposition activists, many linked to the Srbazan Movement led by Bagrat Srbazan. And then as of today, earlier today in Armenia time, we're recording this late in the evening, that crackdown continued and it widened. Dozens of people are under arrest and Bagrat Srbazan has been arrested as far as we know. Also arrested are David Galstyan, a member of the Artsakh Parliament. Ana Rostomyan, head of our children NGO, and So, you know, you spend a lot of time in Russia. How is this attack against the church, against the opposition, the arrest of Samvel Karapetyan? How is it viewed in the Kremlin? We know that I think after the arrest of Karapetyan and Zakharova made statements, not just once, twice, but how will this be reflected in Armenian-Russian relations? That's a very, very important question, because now I'm in Moscow taking part in Primakov readings. And when we meet Russian colleagues, maybe that was for the first time when we discussed not Armenian-Russian relations, not some regional stuff, not even Iran-Israel. But all their questions were about Armenia's internal situation. So it means that there is a shift from Russia's perspective, from geopolitical approach about Armenia to internal affairs. And as we see within the media coverage, etc., this issue, as for me, as I monitor different state-affiliated media, it's much more wide covered than, for example, when Armenia adopted a bill to start the integration with the European Union. So from one perspective, that might be the biggest trigger for Russia to start some serious discussions. But now we see that this discussion is much more important for Russia. Obviously, Russia is positioned itself as a Caucasus country that has interest within all South Caucasus. And this is why they try to be more active in Armenia. And as far as we know, the who will be in charge of Armenia because it means that Russia admits that it failed in the South Caucasus because we see how the level of Russian presence in the region is actually reducing and continues to reduce also in Armenia. So it means that they realize that there is a need to change an approach And for me, it means that they will try to pay more attention to not South Caucasian stuff, unblocking communication, delimitation, demarcation process, peace deal between Armenia and Azerbaijan, etc. But pay attention more to internal developments. And from Russia's perspective, these arrests are not a big case. At least they do not speak so loudly about it. but arrest of Samvel Karapetyan, first. And second, Armenia's decision to nationalize Armenia's electricity company. And for them, it's obviously that the next step will be nationalization of railways. Yes, or railway, okay. Railway, because it will be much more easier for them to do. And for me, it will be cheaper to do, And they see that from their perspective, Armenia has shifted from reducing Russian presence from military to economy. Because before that, Russian board troops left Zvartnots airport. Russia's border troops left Armenia-Azerbaijan border. Russia's military left Sunni. Russia's border troops left Armenia-Iran checkpoint. So it was all about security and military stuff. And now from their perspective, there is a shift to more economic stuff because Russia perceived Armenia's diversification process as a pivot. Because this, from Russia's perspective, diversification  is oriented mostly towards the West. Yes, in terms of security, India is number one, our military technical partner, but all other interest is really oriented towards the West. But I don't see that Russia will change its model. Let me remind you, for example, Russia's official statement during 2023 protests in Armenia. Russia stated that this is Armenia's internal affairs and we are not going to do anything with it. And maybe something will be changed in case of different or new appointments within the presidential administration. But the problem is Russia is still limited in its toolkit. We see that Russia was not able at least to change the situation in Moldova. At that point, that was a more important case than Armenia. But the next year, obviously, the Armenian But the only good case that Russia had, there were elections in Abkhazia. And they will try to shift this success from Abkhazia, from Gyumri to Armenia's elections. Do they have toolkit? Do they have roadmap? Do they have enough capabilities? I mean, in terms of experts who is very good, familiar with Armenia's internal problems, I don't have an answer. Because it's not possible to change in one day. Because when I talk with my Russian colleagues from expert community who focus on Armenia, most of them do not know Armenia. Most of them do not read Facebook. And in fact, I should say that in terms of soft power, you know, Russia is almost absent. If there is no military involvement, there is definitely no soft power involvement. Meanwhile, we see the EU, you know, going like, you know, doubling down and going all in on Pashinyan. We know that EU, for instance, and the West. um they have agreed to host the next European uh political community meeting uh shortly before the elections uh you know next year in Yerevan yeah so to me it's also a question of how Russia can increase its soft power not that i think that you know we're inviting different foreign powers to battle it out in Armenia, but it's obvious that Russia has been very passive. And maybe with this recent appointment, I forget who the name of the Kremlin appointee, maybe things will change, but There, you know, Pashinyan is continuing. I mean, there was, I think Russian, when we were talking with Fyodor Lukyanov, you know, he said that, you know, I think things are changing now with Armenia, but even this arrests against the opposition are being used by Pashinyan in a geopolitical manner. He was basically saying that before the loss of Artsakh, i felt that i was the prime minister of a fourth post of a Russian outpost now i am the prime minister of a sovereign state of Armenia so it's obvious that Pashinyan has not relented on his um you know anti-Russian uh shift so you know For me, to be honest, the most interesting part was there were actually two visits at the high level from Russia, Mr. Lavrov and Mrs. Matviyenko. And as far as I understand, also from conversations both from Armenia and from Russia, Both sides, at least preliminary, agreed to forget all mutual mistakes, because Russia did many mistakes, Armenia did mistakes. And let's try to focus on some positive agenda. And that was a preliminary agreement to at least shift the vector of bilateral relations. But we see that we are coming back in this case. And also we should admit that I agree with Lukyanov that something changed. Let me give you one case how Russia's approach has changed towards Armenia. For example, Russia has closed almost all options for Armenia to benefit from re-export and re-import. We see how the trade turnover is decreasing dramatically. So it means that precious metals, gold, etc. Armenia is not able to buy from Russia and export to Arab Emirates or China, etc. And it means that that's obvious. Armenia's economy did not benefit so much from it because different small circles actually benefited. Yes, they paid taxes. Maybe that was the only benefit for Armenia's budget because they did not create some additional job places, etc. It means that Russia was trying to limit the capabilities of a business elite that is close to decision-making sensors. So this is the change of, this is the only change or the only case we may discuss that Russia is at least trying to use. So I'm not sure that this might be a success, but if Russia decides, because there are different discussions in Russia, so maybe we should increase the gas prices or the wheat prices, or reduce the amount of tourists coming from Russia to Armenia, etc., some of them, they realized that that's the worst option for Russia that they may use, actually. Because in this case, as far as I understand, relations will not be restored. They will be destroyed. But some of them, they are convinced that we should, I mean, these Russians, they should use stick in order to push Armenia to think a bit about both external and internal decisions. Interesting. Interesting. Sergei, Hovig mentioned a little earlier that Pashinyan on June 13 was in Istanbul, and coincidentally Aliyev was there too. We don't know a whole lot about the agenda of those meetings because they just don't disclose these things publicly, even though Pashinyan was going to meet two countries that are essentially enemies of Armenia at present, and they refuse to establish normal diplomatic ties. What was the purpose of Pashinyan's visit? What was accomplished in Istanbul? To be honest, I don't have an answer on this question. What was the purpose? Because first, this purpose was not declared. And second, we do not see any achievements. I mean, the agenda was obvious. Try to normalize relations with Turkey. Try to open the border. But we see that that was not possible to do within the last five years. And if we don't have some qualitative indicators that there is some change in Turkey's approach towards Armenia or towards Azerbaijan, Why we should expect that something may change? In contrary, we see how the level of relations between Baku and Ankara is increasing. And the Armenians, that might be some hypothesis that current government in Armenia tries to deal with with turkey try to detach turkey from Azerbaijan try to detach these two agendas armenian Azerbaijan normalization from armenian turkey normalization but we see that it does not work it's contrary we they work jointly in organization islamic cooperation uh during the summit in istanbul We see when they try to create an international legitimacy of the so-called Western Azerbaijan. We see how Erdogan tries to make pressure on Iran to step back on the so-called Zangezur corridor. Actually, the only official representative office of the so-called Western Azerbaijan is operating in Turkey. not in some other country. And we see that they are united in this agenda and you cannot just try to bet all your options and capabilities on trying to detach one agenda from another one. So it will not work. In contrary, you will face joint pressure because if they feel that you are not able to do anything, they will put much more pressure. And so that was the first way that Armenia may follow. The second way, try to find those who are not okay with this agenda. And those who are ready to invest in deterring this agenda, I mean, invest diplomatically, financially, military, etc. And yes, you will not achieve the peace deal with Turkey or with Azerbaijan in a short term run. But at least you may change the balance of power somehow. Because your Armenia today is actually the so-called Western Azerbaijan agenda. While Azerbaijan is trying to create a consensus around this agenda, tries to sell to first to Muslim world and the wider society that that's actually a good agenda. And does matter that it's aimed against Armenians as a state. So we see that this is a big achievement for Azerbaijani plus Turkish diplomacy, and we are alone in this agenda. Yeah, I mean... again to me it's like you know the armenian media framed it as the first official visit uh to turkey since the end of the cold war international media picked up this narrative but we should mention that you know i think that in the past armenia has had better better relations with turkey despite its continuing blockade for instance we know that level visited Ozel's funeral during his time and Sir Saxon did the football diplomacy and also visited Turkey so it's not a groundbreaking event for an Armenian official and elected official to visit Turkey but it was pretty embarrassing because You know, the messaging the next day, right? The next day after Pashinyan visits, there is this OIC, Organization of Islamic Cooperation, in Istanbul that is hosted by Turkey. And the resolution, the declaration... contains severely anti-Armenian statements. I mean, OIC has always supported Azerbaijan over the last 30 years, but I felt at least that this year's of Azerbaijani agenda. They straight out said that Armenia should address the remaining legal and political obstacles, a reference to changing Armenia's constitution so that a so-called peace deal can be signed. They actually talked about rehabilitation and reconstruction of so-called liberated territories. They named Armenia as an aggressor. They also talked about the return, which is the most dangerous part, of Western Azerbaijanis, so-called, and urged Armenia to talk to the so-called Western Azerbaijan community. So it's almost like a slap in the face to Pashinyan. What is the message from Aliyev? You talked a little bit about it, but what is the message to Pashinyan from Aliyev and Erdogan after all of this? The message is really obvious. Both Aliyev and Erdogan are not going to step back from this agenda. They will continue to make pressure on Armenia till Armenia assigned some capitulation and agreed to have hundreds of thousands of so-called Western Azerbaijanis. And we do not see any change in it. and Aliyev actually stated that um just recently that armenia is a terrorist state or something like that so they try to create a consensus not around Azarbejani agenda but around anti-Armenian agenda, because the so-called Zangezur corridor, the so-called Western Azerbaijan, etc., they are against Armenia. They are not only in favor of Azerbaijan, because it's also in favor of Turkey. So that was a clear message. You will not have a peace deal. You will not succeed in restoring relations with Turkey or restoring communications, open border with Turkey, etc. Until you fill the new list, the new list of demands. And that's might be today, might be the best solution. option for you in terms of um still you have a relevant piece so if you have if you want to have such uh temporary slash relevant piece we have a new... you should continue your subscription. So you should pay for this for this for this uh because uh what do we hear from from Azerbaijani side Like, let's focus on how we may maintain de facto peace, if not the euro. Because if the euro are not able to sign the peace deal, some paper, etc. Let's try to think what we may do So this is their agenda. If you want to have a peace, you should pay for this subscription. Yeah. In fact, I was going to mention a little bit earlier that in a closed meeting with the civil contract people, Pashinyan was quoted as saying that it is imperative that a document called peace be signed before 2026 so that he can be reelected. And we were wondering, what are all the requirements? What's the impediment to signing this thing on the part of Azerbaijan? I think you've answered that with all these But I'm going to stop there because we're running out of time. It's time for me to ask each of you if would like to share with our listeners. I'll start with Hovig to give Sergei a minute or two to think about what you would like to share. Hovig, what's on your mind? Well... I mean, over the years, I've been watching a number of so-called alt-media channels and personalities talk about different geopolitical developments. And I really have to give a shout out to Brian Berletic from the channel The New Atlas, which you can search for it on YouTube. I feel that he best was able to guess the policies of the West and Israel and just not just the West, but like the Ukraine conflict and so forth and the policy of the United States in its quest for global hegemony. And yeah, I mean, different commentators were talking about, you know, maybe let's give Trump a chance. He's a peacemaker and so forth. But Brian really got it right from day one. And he really does do these excellent deep dives into like policy papers and trying to interpret them. By the way, if anyone knows how to get in touch with him or if you follow him on YouTube and attend one of his lives, drop a note and tell us that we would really be honored to have him as our guest as well. So yeah, kudos to Brian Berletic for getting it right. You know who else is amazing, Hovig? Jeffrey Sachs, generally, is pretty amazing. And yesterday on Breaking Points, in his, I think it was 15-minute interview, just searing truth from that man. He's a professor at Columbia, mostly an international financial expert, but also right on the money with the politics and the finances. It was just unbelievable. Yeah, let's hope we can have him back sometime in the fall. I think we're working on that, right? Yeah, we are working on that. Sergei, some thoughts you would like to share? Yeah, I think that will be important. The recent war in Israel against Iran was a very important test for the South Caucasus and for Armenia. And within this test, we see that Turkey and Azerbaijan they were preparing to use this open window of opportunity. It means that in case of a more long-term escalation around Iran, they will definitely will use this historical opportunity. That's first. Second, it means that Armenia should be prepared for such scenario because this ceasefire obviously is temporary. And Israel, again, will try to attack Iran. Maybe by some different means. Maybe in six months, in one year, if not, maybe in 10 years. But still, we are in the region where we are. And it means that we should be prepared for these scenarios. And all our assessments that we have very existential risks coming from Azerbaijan and Turkey, they were proved. by statements, by diplomatic actions. Hikmet Hajiev, who stated that expect from Armenia some tangible actions to open a so-called Zangezur corridor. The Aliyev statement, Armenia is a terrorist state. Aliyev's diplomacy within OIC, but as you mentioned, et cetera, increasing the military presence in Nakhijevan. Actually, in Nakhijevan during last weeks became the most militarized part of the South Caucasus. And obviously that this part is aimed not against Iran in the long term run, yes, but in short term run, it will be used against Armenia. So it means that we should have some lessons learned time to prepare for the worst case scenario, because definitely they will come soon. And are we prepared? You don't have to answer that question. Thank you, Sergei, for spending your time and insight with us. We appreciate it. Thank you. It's always a pleasure to be with you. Thank you. All right, Hovik, now that our guest has left the building, Elvis has left the building, it's time for The Kitchen Sink, where the stories are too hot, too weird, or just too corrupt to leave out. So let's talk about a few things. We've had a couple of weeks to catch up on this. So maybe there's a lot, maybe there's not. I don't know. We'll see what we talk about. Yeah, not just a few. Yeah, overnight, there's been a lot of crackdowns. I mean, we're talking about dozens of people. Can you tell us a little bit about what's going on? Well, I think it's just the continuation of the ridiculous circus that Nikol Pashinyan is staging. Apparently, they had discovered a terrorist plot to take over power. And some of the evidence, like the night before, actually, Civic.am, which is very pro-Pashinyan media, they published this document, apparently outlining a plan to do a coup in Armenia. The catch, you know, when we looked at the unredacted version of that document that was also published by the Armenian law enforcement, and also very interesting how... this media gets access to all these documents the night before the NSS publishes it. But anyway, so the NSS published the same document, unredacted, and the only thing redacted on that document was the date, and the document was basically from 2024. Even if this document is real, it is a document from 2024 that is being used to... Do you think that this publication today or yesterday is actually a leak? I mean, it could be fabricated as far as I know. There were also some recordings. Again, I'm not going to go into it because nowadays you can fabricate anything. You can edit and cut things out of context, which the Armenian government has been known to do almost always in the past. So I would just urge our listeners to, you know, realize that Pashinyan is a master of media manipulations and he's going to continue his attacks against opposition. It's clear that at least one of the goals is to remove as many people he can from the scene where they can be active politically in the next few months. Maybe he's planning on signing something. Maybe he's planning, he just wants to avoid negative coverage. But like the other evidence, it's just ridiculous. The other evidence that they posted were pictures of a collection of guns. It's just like a hunting rifle with some shells. And they even took the picture of the person's valid... gun license, that he was legally allowed to own those guns, as if it's some kind of an evidence of a coup. They even showed pictures of these rebars used in construction, and it seems like a sample. They're like six-inch rebars of different lengths and of different thicknesses, as if it's like a rebar salesperson you know and they're using this as like a cold weapon as something that they have uh showing to the public the incriminating horrible incriminating evidence of a revolution I mean, it's just ridiculous. And look at when Pashinyan came to power in 2019. He staged a show, the so-called Tushonka show, where he went and confiscated some weapons from Manvel Grigorian that belonged to Yekrapah. He falsely claimed that this canned food that was stored in Manvel Grigoryan's storehouses was his and he had stolen from the army, when that also belonged to Yekrapah. And this eventually led to his death. And it was all just a stage show, which Arthur Vanetsyan also admitted to, that he was participating in this stage show. I listened to some of those audio recordings on that page that you were talking about. And to me, I had a couple of questions. First of all, no offense intended to anybody. I don't quite recognize the voices and stuff like maybe you do. But I was thinking, how stupid are these people openly talking about these things when There could be recordings. And number two was, is everything pervasively surveilled and recorded at this point in this society? Does the government have the right or the means to be recording all these people? Are there subpoenas involved? Have the courts been authorizing these things? What's going on? Where do they have all these things from? so first of all i i wouldn't exclude that this is completely fabricated generated by perhaps by ai and we should not believe in any of these until they're authenticated by the courts second um We know that Armenia has been chipping away at citizens' rights to privacy and to be protected from surveillance. And we've been talking about that. Yeah, we've been talking about that. So, for instance, when previously only the National Security Service could listen in on phone conversations, for instance. Now any police officer can do that. And the surface area for... you know, violations or malpractice of the law, it just increases because if you know a cop, then you can sort of maybe like as a favor, ask him to do a wiretap. But most likely these are probably, you know, done to the old fashioned means of implanting bugs in someone's houses. We know that Bagrat's hotel room during He was one of the arrestees last night, or this morning. He was arrested along with the But Hovig, the other big target that has been happening for the past week or so is Samvel Garabedian, who is the owner of the Armenian Electric Network. Who is he? He's been around for a long time. Tell us a little more about this guy. Well, he's a Russian-Armenian business person. He's a new citizen of Armenia and Russia. And perhaps he is the richest Armenian... on the planet today, other than maybe next to Ruben Vartanian and a few others, but he's definitely in the top five. And on June 17th, they asked him about this conflict between the Armenian church and asked him for his opinion. And basically he said that if the politicians cannot protect the Armenian church, then he would do it his own way. I mean, that was the extent of the statement. And that became a threat to Pashinyan. The same day, the same day, Pashinyan had him arrested. 40 of his supporters and family members arrested. And he went on a tirade of Facebook rants. So he was at a parliament session that day. And, you know, just so I could understand the sequence of everything that was happening, actually, this is not a grateful job. I actually went through his Facebook posts and tried to understand, like, you know, his thinking. And it's basically attack after attack. He called the clergy... Very bad names, I'm not going to repeat them. Then he called Samvel Karapetyan very bad names and said, let me now deal with you in my own way. You know, sit your ass down or something to that effect to Ktrij Nersisyan, who is an archbishop. Sorry, sit your ass down to Arshak Archbishop, who is a spokesperson for Garegin II. Anyway, and then continuing his tirades against priestly celibacy as if Armenia has no other problem. So one of the biggest... I'm pretty concerned about the aspect of the so-called nationalizing of the Armenian electric network that Samvel Garabedian owns. This is a pretty important entity. He bought it for like $253 million about 10 years ago. I'm sure it's worth a lot more right now. I'm not sure how they're going to nationalize this thing. Where is the money coming from? How does Armenia have this money? Are they going to pay it with some kind of internal debt, external debt? How much is it going to cost the country to do this? And frankly, I am convinced, I mean, I don't have any evidence, but look at the history that after nationalizing this thing, they're probably going to privatize it and the the friends of friends of these people who are going to become the new owners. I mean, there were some there were some rumors in Armenian media, which I can't vouch for, but they actually said Khachatur Sukiasyan, the favorite oligarch of the regime, was bringing in some Turkish partners to eventually re-privatize this. But Yeah, I mean, Samuel Karapetyan was asked by the Armenian government to help out and acquire this project. investment in 2015 and I think he did generally a good job in modernizing it and you know but now Pashinyan is using this also as a political tool for instance recently there were some power outages and according to Armenian law if the electric network cannot, you know, has an outage that is longer than a certain period, they're supposed to reimburse customers. So he's now promising, you know, if you let me nationalize the electric networks, then I will make sure that all the money owed to you, which is like pennies, basically, for the power that was not delivered to you, and for the outages you know we will get you so he's probably going to use that issue at least to build support for his nationalization but you're right it's a huge it's going to be a huge debt that Pashinyan say you know how can you be against the Armenian state owning its resources Well, if it was any other state, maybe I would be more confident. But we've seen how the state We've seen failure after failure. So it doesn't give me confidence that if the state actually does take over, first of all, what message does it even send to foreign investors in Armenia that your stuff can be nationalized? If you open your mouth, the moment you open your mouth and say something, then uh you know yeah how would you invest so so pashinyan you know if you want to understand the level of vengefulness that pashinyan can um exhibit, you should know that he continued his campaign against Samvel Karapetyan. Suddenly, overnight, the health authorities initiated inspections at at least 30 branches of Tashir Pisa, which is also owned by Samvel Karapetyan. And 10 of the branches were, at least 10 of the branches were closed down. I think it was maybe 14, I'm not sure. So yeah, you go, you cross Pashinyan and he will go after you with his full force. So, I mean, it's just a mockery. I also want to mention something that happened a month ago that we did not fully cover, but... if you remember that outburst that Pashinyan had in parliament, where he told Seyran Ohanyan and Artzvik Minasyan, how dare you even stand here and say, you know, how dare you have a house in Sevan? So that was after essentially an argument in parliament, and he had an outburst, and voila, as soon as he has an outburst, and as soon as he marks someone to be targeted, Armenian law enforcement has appealed to the parliament to remove immunity from Arsik Minasyan and Seyran Ohanyan. And I believe that meeting is going to happen soon. And once they do that, they intend to arrest or file criminal cases against Ohanyan. Again, it's all fabricated. The criminal case against Ohanyan is the same evidence that was used against Ohanyan's wife. They knew about this evidence at least two years ago. that supposedly she has an illegally Now they're using the same evidence against him, which is just like an example of fabricated all this evidence and it's malleable. Whenever you need it, you can use it against your political opponents. Yeah, yeah. Interestingly, with all these arrests going on, on the same day that Pashinyan ordered the arrest of Samvel Garabedian just a few days ago, he also dismissed National Security Service Chief Armen Abazyan. There's no explanation. Even today, which has been, what, a week, week and a half or something? There's no explanation as to why he was dismissed. In fact, there was some weird explanation as to he needed a little bit of a break and can cool down or something like that. But the timing strongly suggests that there are some connections, something going on that we are not aware about. Now, the guy is no angel. Armen Abazyan is no angel. He served loyally under Pashinyan, a little bit like the enforcers on Orwell's animal farm, you know, taking care of business, but his ouster is the fifth or sixth NSS chief removed in as many years. Kovig, you mentioned that there was this acrimonious performance or address that Pashinyan gave in Parliament. Well, that was really offensive. He used a lot of curse words and threats and such. And there's this lawyer, Armine Fanyan, who is suing Pashinyan for spreading hatred. She says that Pashinyan's Facebook personal information as well and broke privacy laws. She says that Pashinyan publicly announced and if he tries to deny it, they are going to prove it. He broke... He articles something and something and something of the criminal code. I don't remember what those are. If some harm were to come to the Catholicos or the church, then Pashinyan could be indicted or even more, be convicted of a major crime. We lost the... With all due respect, I mean, knowing what the courts are doing nowadays, nothing is going to come out of this. Look at the Seyran Ohanyan case, look at how easily they are approving the arrests of these opposition members. And yeah, I mean, we have a compliant court system. Probably, in my opinion, the most compliant Yeah, there's no independence of the judicial system. It's unfortunate. But well, let me just, since you were making an address to, who was it, Berletik, I think, earlier, I'll just say, Fanyan, Armine Fanyan, if you speak English, come and talk with us on the show. Tell us about the case and why it's important to pursue it. Okay. Okay. So finally, in the midst of the war in Iran, in the midst of all the circus at home, it's easy to forget that Azerbaijan continues almost daily shootings at our borders. Armenian villagers are continuously threatened and terrorized. Pashinyan and his ilk try to cover up for the Azeris and pretend this doesn't happen. Like, I mean, when they question the They're just shooting at each other. They're shooting for fun in the air. That is an actual excuse given by an Armenian military officer, a spokesperson for the defense ministry. And we at Grun want to emphasize that this must not become background noise. It is real. And it is pushing communities like Khnatsakh to the edge. We cannot afford to get used to this. So please make noise about this. Please continue thinking about our border and the continuous threat that we have from Azerbaijan and Turkey, for that matter, on that border. But, you know, maybe this is why Pashinyan is constantly throwing spaghetti at the wall with his stupid cultural wars and religious wars to that they don't think about the real dangers at the border. Right? Perhaps. Yeah. But, Hovik, we talked about Armen Abazyan, the NSS and stuff like that. When you hear state secret, what comes to your mind? Let me think. Nuclear codes, secret bunkers, or maybe Yeah, you're very close. But no, it turns out that the budget for Anna Hakobyan's Education is Trendy. Fluff-stuff, this is a state secret. So you can't know how much she's spending on this. You're kidding. It was some My Step project, pet project that got turned into something that's funded from the executive budget from the prime minister's budget. And they're saying that if the prime minister attends these events, then it becomes a state secret and they can't tell us about this. Classic. Is he even attending though? I'm not sure. Probably. Who knows? I don't know. I mean, I don't know that there was anything to know until they told us that you can't know. Well, it sounds like a clever way to jumpstart the election campaign, fill the room with teachers and principals clap for Nikol and his First Girlfriend and call for education reform. Yeah, I think we might be the only country Wait a second. Macron is married. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Education is Trendy, you know, and so is campaigning on the taxpayer's dime. Speaking of that, did you hear that Anna Hakobyan is now headed for China? She has been enrolled in this That's what it's called. She is? For a two-year program. That's right. That's right. Well, I hope she's inspired by normalcy and becomes a lifelong learner and never comes back to Armenia. Yeah, that would be really trendy. Class dismissed. That's our show today, folks. Recorded June 25, 2025. Well, we've been talking with Dr. Sergei Melkonian in this show. He is currently a research fellow at APRI, APRI Armenia in Yerevan, and also a visiting professor at Yerevan State University and the Russian Armenian University. For more information on him, on me, and on Hovik, you can go to podcasts.groong.org / episode number. And folks, while Armenia's government is busy planning, education is trendy events behind classified budgets. And the first girlfriend or lady or whatever is off to normal university in China. We're here doing the real work, asking questions, breaking down policy, and connecting the dots. If you think that's more useful than photo ops and fluff, help us keep going. Subscribe to Groom on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Again. Spotify and Apple Podcasts, help us grow on those platforms and drop a rating or leave a review and you'll get extra credit if it's clever. Yeah, nothing long, you know, just a few words. As long as there's a review, I think that's going to help us on those platforms. Thank you very much. I'm Asbed Bedrossian, still in Los Angeles. And I'm Hovik Manucharyan, normally from sunny Armenia, but still currently in Glendale for one more week. Hey, Asbed, you want to hear a quick story? Okay. Give us a story. Well, I'm officially famous now. So I was at the gym in Glendale and this guy said, wait, aren't you Hovik from Armenia? You got that podcast, right? I go like... I smile. It was a celebrity moment, obviously. And I go, yeah, what do you think about it? So he pauses, he stares blankly and says nothing. I thought he was going to say that, oh, I know you from that podcast. Aren't you Asbed Bedrossian? Yeah. So yeah, but it was a huge moment. I finally met my audience and he ghosted me in person. Oh, I look forward to my 15 minutes of fame. Okay, we'll talk to you soon, folks. Bye-bye. Thanks for listening.