Serzh Sargsyan

Sargsyan has been under criminal prosecution within the scope of a criminal case on embezzlement. The Special Investigative Service of Armenian on December 4, 2019, has brought embezzlement charges against Sargsyan, particularly for the organization of the embezzlement of half a billion AMD within the scope of the state program on assisting farmers to obtain diesel fuel on affordable price in 2013. In January 2020, based on sufficient evidence collected, the Special Investigative Service has indicted Sargsyan for embezzlement on especially large scale (AMD $489,160,310) and the criminal case with the indictment has been handed to the prosecutor supervising the case for approval and sending it to court.

Shortly after the end of his presidency on 9 April 2018, Sargsyan was elected Prime Minister of Armenia on 17 April. Opposition figures described this as a "power grab" and there were large-scale protests against him. These protests were eventually successful in pressuring Sargsyan, who resigned on 23 April. Former Prime Minister Karen Karapetyan succeeded Sargsyan as acting Prime Minister.

President Sargsyan supported Armenia's efforts to ink an Association Agreement with the EU, which contains a Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area, for several years. Under his Presidency, the negotiations for the agreement were completed and Armenia was set to sign the agreement at an upcoming EU Summit. However, President Sargsyan made a drastic policy reversal when in September 2013, after a meeting with President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, he opted to join the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union. It was widely believed that Russian pressure and threats killed the deal with the EU. Even though such a reversal was made, President Sargsyan's administration was determined to further EU inspired reforms in law and governance, and this led to Armenia signing the Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement with the European Union on 24 November 2017. Behind the scenes, Russia granted approval to Armenia to sign the deal after any economic provisions were removed from the deal.

In July 2016, Armenians protested in the capital Yerevan for the release of all political prisoners and the resignation of president Serzh Sargsyan and so to end his corruption according to the Armenian protesters. The national security service of Armenia called the takeover a "terrorist" attack, but a growing number of Armenian civilians disagreed with that assessment.

In September 2013 and under Sargsyan's direction, Armenia announced its intentions of joining the Eurasian Economic Union with Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia. The Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU or EEU) is an economic union of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia, and came into force on 1 January 2015. Treaties aiming for Armenia's accession to the Eurasian Economic Union was signed on 9 October 2014. Armenia's accession treaty came into force on 2 January 2015. The Eurasian Economic Union has an integrated single market of 176 million people and a gross domestic product of over 4 trillion U.S. dollars (PPP). The EEU introduces the free movement of goods, capital, services and people and provides for common transport, agriculture and energy policies, with provisions for a single currency and greater integration in the future.

Despite pledging in 2014 not to become Prime Minister again while supporting an amendment of the constitution in 2015 that would allow it, Sargsyan was again elected Prime Minister of Armenia in April 2018, in what opposition figures described as a "power grab". Six days after taking office, Sargsyan resigned after large-scale protests. Sargsyan is currently the leader of the Republican Party, which from 1995 to 2018 held a majority in Armenia's National Assembly.

During Sargsyan's presidency the record of the freedom of speech and the freedom of press in general also improved in Armenia. Internet penetration rose sharply – from 6.2 percent in 2008 to 37 percent in 2011, providing greater access to online media, which rapidly grew in number, including blogosphere – with over 10,000 bloggers in 2011.

In his electoral program of 2013, Sargsyan promised to increase the security guarantees of Nagorno-Karabakh and its people given Azerbaijan's policy of Armenophobia. He also highlighted the importance of strengthening the defensive system of Armenia "as a factor restraining the Azerbaijani aggression and ensuring stability in the South Caucasus". The candidate also promised to take all the necessary efforts to ensure that Karabakh becomes a negotiating side in the peace talks as well as to foster the ties between Karabakh and the international community.

Serzh Sargsyan was sworn in as President at the Yerevan Opera House on 9 April. Referring to the "painful events" that followed the election, he "urge[d] everybody to look forward, together, to seek and find the way for reconciliation, development, and future of Armenia." He appointed Tigran Sargsyan, who had been the Chairman of the Central Bank and is not a member of a political party, as Prime Minister. According to the Freedom House report "In 2011, the government took concrete steps to fulfill longstanding and often repeated promises to confront corruption. E-government services reduced opportunities for bribery, while new regulations and stricter enforcement led to higher numbers of corruption lawsuits and fines against senior officials and large companies. Owing to a more consolidated government effort to eradicate corruption, Armenia's corruption rating improve[d] from 5.50 to 5.25."

Major protests against Sargsyan's regime began in 2011, with the president's 2008 rival Levon Ter-Petrossian at their helm. In a concession to protesters, Sargsyan said on 20 April 2011 that the government would recommit to a thorough investigation of the post-election violence of three years prior.

The start of Sargsyan's presidency coincided with the Great Recession. In 2009, Armenia's GDP contracted over 14%, which according to the World Bank was the fifth worst in the world that year after the three Baltic states and Ukraine. GDP growth subsequently stabilized at around 3% by 2013. As of 2014, Armenia's GDP is below the pre-crisis levels. During his first term of presidency, the official poverty rate doubled and reached 32.4% in 2012. According to official data, some 213,000 people have left Armenia from 2008 to 2013. In 2012, Armenia was ranked 39th out of 179 economies according to the Index of Economic Freedom and is ranked 19th freest among the 43 countries in the Europe region.

On 10 October 2009 the foreign ministers of Armenia and Turkey signed protocols on establishing diplomatic relations between the two countries without any preconditions. The accord also presupposed the opening of the border between Armenia and Turkey which had been closed by Turkey in 1993. The protocols were signed in Geneva, Switzerland under the international mediation, chiefly that of the United States.

Sargsyan, with President Kocharyan's backing, was viewed as the strongest contender for the post of the President of Armenia in the February 2008 presidential election. Full provisional results showed him winning about 53% of the vote, a first round majority, well ahead of second place candidate Levon Ter-Petrossian. The 2008 Presidential election was hailed as largely democratic by OSCE, the European Union (EU) and Western monitors.

Ter-Petrossian's supporters, disputing the official results, held large protests in Yerevan for over a week following the election, until they were violently broken up on 1 March; ten people (eight protestors and two police officers) were killed, and a state of emergency was imposed for 20 days, ending on 20 March 2008.

Sargsyan made his first address in front of the 63rd session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York on 25 September 2008. In his speech he referenced the 2008 South Ossetia conflict and emphasized the need for the United Nations to help bring peaceful resolution to armed conflicts around the world, including the one in Nagorno-Karabakh. He also mentioned how Azerbaijan's military buildup along with increasing war rhetoric and threats risked causing renewed problems in the South Caucasus.

Sargsyan continues the policy towards the peaceful resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict pursued by his predecessors, which constitutes one of the main goals of the Armenian foreign policy. Sargsyan has repeatedly stated that the Armenian side is interested in finding a just and exclusively peaceful solution to the conflict and that the OSCE Minsk Group is the viable format within which the peace talks should continue. He has thus continued the negotiations with Azerbaijan and has had a number of meetings with the president of Azerbaijan within the framework of OSCE Minsk Group. On 2 November 2008, Ilham Aliyev and Serzh Sargsyan traveled to Moscow for talks with Dmitry Medvedev. The talks ended in the three Presidents signing a declaration confirming their commitment to continue talks. The two presidents met again since then, in 2009 in Saint Petersburg and on 22 November 2009, together with several world leaders, in Munich where President Aliyev once more threatened to resort to military force to reestablish control over the region if the two sides did not reach an agreeable settlement.

Having been elected as a president for his first term in 2008, Sargsyan pledged to continue Armenia's policy towards Turkey, to normalize relations without any preconditions while continuing to strive for international recognition of the 1915 Armenian Genocide.

Coming to power, Sargsyan took steps towards the normalization of ties with Turkey, a policy termed as "football diplomacy". In 2008, Sargsyan took a historical initiative to invite Turkish President Abdullah Gül to Armenia to watch a 2010 FIFA World Cup qualifier match between Armenia and Turkey. Abdullah Gül attended the game in Armenia while Serzh Sargsyan made a reciprocal visit to Turkey to watch the second match.

From 1993 to 1995 he served the Minister of Defense of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic; he was then the Head of the State Security Department and, later, the Minister of National Security of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic till 1996. From 1999 to 2000 he served as the Chief of Staff for the President Robert Kocharyan, and then till 2007 he served as the Defence Minister of Armenia. He was the Secretary of the National Security Council led by President Kocharyan from 1999 to 2007. On 4 April 2007 Sargsyan was appointed as the Prime Minister of Armenia, following the sudden death of Andranik Margaryan.

The most vivid expression of anti-Armenian policies of Azerbaijan was the hero's welcome given to the convicted ax murderer Ramil Safarov who had brutally killed Armenian officer Gurgen Margaryan during the NATO's Partnership for Peace program in Budapest in 2004. The fact that after his extradition to Azerbaijan in 2012 Safarov was pardoned by president Aliyev, promoted to the rank of major, given an apartment with over eight years of back pay and was made a national hero, hampers the negotiation process and proves, in Sargsyan's words, that "the Azeri propaganda brings up an entire generation in the atmosphere of xenophobia and intolerance."

As tensions rose over Nagorno-Karabakh between Armenians and Azerbaijanis, Sargsyan became the Chairman of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic Self-Defense Forces Committee and was subsequently elected to the Supreme Council of Armenia in 1990.

In 1979 when he became head of the Stepanakert City Communist Party Youth Association Committee. Then he served as the Second Secretary, the First Secretary, the Stepanakert City Committee Propaganda Division Head, the Nagorno-Karabakh Regional Committee Communist Organizations' Unit Instructor, and finally as the assistant to Genrikh Poghosyan, the First Secretary of the Nagorno-Karabakh Regional Committee.

Sargsyan's career began in 1975 at the Electrical Devices Factory in Yerevan.

Serzh Sargsyan (Armenian: Սերժ Սարգսյան , pronounced [sɛɾʒ sɑɾkʰəsˈjɑn] ; born 30 June 1954) is an Armenian politician who served twice as the Prime Minister of Armenia and was the third President of Armenia, from 2008 to 2018. He won the February 2008 presidential election with the backing of the ruling Republican Party of Armenia, a party in which he serves as chairman, and took office in April 2008. On 18 February 2013, he was re-elected as president and served the entire term.

Serzh Sargsyan was born on 30 June 1954 in Stepanakert in the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast, then-part of the Azerbaijan SSR. He is the son of Azat Avetis Sargsyan (1929-2013) and Nora Sargsyan. He entered Yerevan State University in 1971, served in the Soviet Armed Forces during 1971–72, and graduated from the Philological Department of Yerevan State University in 1979. In 1983, he married his wife, Rita, with whom he has two daughters, Anush and Satenik. They have two granddaughters, Mariam and Rita, and two grandsons, Ara and Serzh. Sargsyan is also the chairman of the Armenian Chess Federation. In addition to his native Armenian, he is fluent in Russian. He is not related to the former Prime Minister of Armenia, Tigran Sargsyan, or current President of Armenia, Armen Sarkissian.