The Region in Brief
Armenia
Director of the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute Edita Gzoyan has submitted her resignation. Officials at the institute declined to comment on the reasons for the resignation or the legal grounds involved and asked that inquiries be submitted in writing.
“The resignation has been submitted, but no legal act has been issued yet,” a museum representative said.
Gzoyan previously escorted U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance and his wife during their visit to the museum-institute and presented the vice president with books on the Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) conflict and the Armenian Genocide.
Artsakh
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom’s 2026 report places Azerbaijan on the Special Watch List and raises concerns about the protection of Armenian cultural and religious heritage in Artsakh following the 2020 war and the 2023 Azerbaijani attack and ethnic cleansing of the Armenian population.
The report cites satellite imagery, as of July, documenting eight destroyed and 10 damaged religious sites, including churches, cemeteries and other religious sites. It also records family reports that Armenian political prisoners in Baku have been prohibited from receiving religious items such as Bibles.
Another report states that the nearly two dozen Armenian Christians detained in Baku have been tried in closed proceedings without adequate legal counsel and were subjected to physical abuse, psychological mistreatment, denial of medical care and sufficient food, and the deliberate erasure of religious identity through the refusal of Bibles and the burning of cross tattoos.
Azerbaijan
President Ilham Aliyev has approved amendments to the constitution of the Nakhichevan Autonomous Republic removing references to the 1921 Moscow and Kars treaties. Previously, the preamble to Nakhichevan’s constitution cited the March 16, 1921, Moscow Treaty and the Oct. 13, 1921, Kars Treaty as the international agreements establishing the region’s autonomous status and delineating its territorial boundaries. The revised preamble omits those references and instead states that “the Nakhichevan Autonomous Republic is an integral part of the Republic of Azerbaijan.”
The amendments also introduce a new article establishing the Office of the Authorized Representative of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan in the Nakhichevan Autonomous Republic. Under the new provision, the authorized representative will lead an executive body responsible for implementing directives from the president. The representative is appointed and dismissed by, and directly accountable to, the president.
Additionally, Article 5, which previously defined the highest official of the autonomous republic — formerly the chairman of the Supreme Assembly of Nakhichevan — has been removed. The changes stipulate that the cabinet of ministers of the autonomous republic will no longer be subordinate to the regional parliament and will determine its procedures in consultation with the president of Azerbaijan.
Iran
Iran has appointed Mojtaba Khamenei as its new supreme leader, signaling that hardline factions remain in power and potentially closing any near-term path to ending the war in the Middle East.
The 56-year-old Shiite cleric succeeds his father, Ali Khamenei who was killed in a U.S.-Israeli strike on Feb. 28. President Donald Trump has rejected the appointment and demanded Iran’s unconditional capitulation.
The development has heightened fears that disruptions to global energy supplies — already among the most severe in recent decades — could last longer than expected. Oil prices have surged to record highs, while global stock markets have dropped sharply. The war has effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, a key route for about one-fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas, and tankers have been unable to pass for more than a week.
Iranian state media showed large crowds in several cities supporting the new leader, waving Iranian flags and portraits of his father. Political figures and institutions have pledged loyalty, with the Defense Council declaring: “We will obey the commander in chief until the last drop of our blood.”
Israel says the war aims to topple Iran’s clerical regime and has warned it could target any successor to the elder Khamenei if Tehran continues what it calls hostile policies. Washington initially said its goal was to destroy Iran’s missile capabilities and nuclear program, but Trump later said the war could end only with a compliant Iranian government and insisted the U.S. should take part in selecting Iran’s supreme leader.
Turkey
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan issued a strong warning to potential adversaries while addressing a meeting of his party’s parliamentary group and commenting on the ongoing war in the Middle East.
Erdoğan said that “whoever raises a hand against Turkey will lose that hand, and whoever threatens it with words will regret it.”
He stressed that Turkey has no territorial claims against other states but warned that any attempt to violate Turkish territory or take reckless actions against the country would prompt a firm response. “If anyone encroaches on Turkish lands and takes reckless steps, Turkey will not hesitate to challenge them,” he said.
The director of the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute, Edita Gzoyan, did not “resign”, she was fired!
The traitor Pashinyan stated that it was his request that Edita Gzoyan submits her resignation!
In his words translated into English, he said “On my instructions, yes, I asked her to write a resignation letter. I considered it a provocative act, contrary to the foreign policy pursued by the government”.
So explaining the Armenian Genocide and the Artsakh conflict to J.D. Vance and other visitors, and presenting him books about these topics by the director of the Armenian Genocide Museum in the Armenian Genocide Museum, is a “provocative act”!
This traitor will do anything to appease Armenia’s two Turkic archenemies, and that includes downplaying and questioning the Armenian Genocide!
Nobody should be surprised if this traitor closes down the Armenian Genocide Museum, drops the teaching of the Armenian Genocide in Armenian schools, by morphing it into the denialist “Turkish-version” that it was just a “war” and that “many civilans on both sides were massacred”, and stops the commemoration of the Armenian Genocide, in his unhinged urge to please Turkey and Azerbaijan!