Behind the bitter personal rift between the prime minister and the head of the Armenian Apostolic Church lies the long and complex history of a small and resourceful nation which has suffered trauma and adversity.

THE ARMENIAN ELECTIONS in June were followed with an unusual level of interest, and were widely regarded as a test of public support for Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s policy of geo- political reorientation towards Europe and away from Russia. In May this year, the first EU-Armenia summit and the eighth European Political Community summit brought Sir Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron, Mark Carney, Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Ursula von der Leyen to the country’s capital, Yerevan. Days later, Pashinyan rebuffed the Kremlin’s invitation to attend the Victory Day parade in Moscow. When Pashinyan’s Civil Contract Party was re-elected by a large majority a few weeks later, it was seen as a decisive realignment of Cold War polarities and even as a reassertion of the values of democracy – akin, perhaps, to Péter Magyar’s landslide victory over Viktor Orbán in Hungary. But, as with everything to do with Armenia, it’s not quite so simple.

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