Politics
Power and governance
Armenia’s Constitutional Court rejects the opposition’s challenge on the Catholicos clause
The Constitutional Court refused on Friday to examine a petition by the Strong Armenia and Armenia factions against the National Assembly’s decision approving the government programme, which envisages the removal of Catholicos Karekin II, ruling that programme provisions are political statements without normative content. Speaker Ruben Rubinyan also signed the order composing a parliamentary inquiry committee on the clergy that only majority deputies joined.
Kobakhidze calls the European Parliament worse than the Supreme Soviet of the late 1980s
Georgia’s prime minister answered Thursday’s 445-vote resolution on Friday by saying the European Parliament reminds him of the Supreme Soviet, which in his words was in better shape in the 1980s, while Speaker Shalva Papuashvili counted the ninth hostile resolution and Kakha Kaladze called them riddled with lies. EU foreign ministers take up Georgia under current affairs in Luxembourg on Monday.
Putin, Aliyev and Pezeshkian hold the first three-way summit since 2017 at Avaza
Vladimir Putin, Ilham Aliyev and Masoud Pezeshkian held a trilateral meeting after the Caspian Ecological Summit on Friday, Dmitry Peskov confirmed to Interfax, the first sitting of the Russia, Azerbaijan and Iran format since Tehran in November 2017. APA’s correspondent reported the North-South transport corridor as the main topic, Aliyev then received Pezeshkian separately, and Putin boarded his plane at Turkmenbashi after two full-format bilaterals in two days.
Five presidents create a Caspian commission as Aliyev and Putin differ on the cause
The first Caspian Ecological Summit ended on Friday with a decision by the five heads of state to create a commission of three deputy prime ministers and senior Iranian and Russian representatives on the sea’s falling level, which meets first in Azerbaijan in the first half of 2027. Aliyev named reduced river flow and man-made factors among the causes beside the climate, Putin named climate change the main one.
CIS leaders sign 15 documents at Avaza and Azerbaijan is absent from the memory statement
Azerbaijan is not among the eight signatories of the statement on historical memory adopted at Avaza on Friday, by the Kremlin’s text, one of 15 documents signed as the Commonwealth’s 35th-anniversary council handed the chair to Uzbekistan from 1 January and heard Mirziyoyev invite the leaders to Bukhara next year and Aliyev offer to chair in 2028. Iran’s president sat in for the first time.
A Bishkek court jails Kadyr Atambayev for four years over a plot to seize power
The Pervomaisky district court of Bishkek convicted Kadyrbek Atambayev, the former president’s son known as Kadyr, of violent seizure of power under article 326 of the Criminal Code on Thursday and gave him four years with confiscation, the Bishkek outlet Economist.kg reported from the court’s registry. Social Democrats leader Temirlan Sultanbekov received four years, merged with his 2025 vote-buying sentence into seven, and former deputy Kubanychbek Kadyrov was acquitted.
Rospotrebnadzor ends the Irkutsk watch as Armenia’s new commission sits for the first time
Medical observation of every contact of the laboratory worker who died in Irkutsk has ended, the whole set of preventive measures was completed on 8 October and more than 5,500 laboratory tests found no dangerous pathogen, Rospotrebnadzor said on Thursday, calling social-media reports of a second case false. In Yerevan an interdepartmental commission created by the prime minister’s decision held its first meeting the same evening.
MEPs pass the Georgia and Azerbaijan resolutions by 445 and 492 votes as Baku protests
Strasbourg adopted the joint motion on Georgian Dream’s lawsuit to ban the opposition parties on Thursday by 445 votes to 37 with 97 abstentions, and the motion on Azerbaijan’s political prisoners by 492 to 23 with 60, by the minutes of the sitting. Within four hours the Milli Majlis called the Azerbaijan text a biased political action, and Georgian Dream’s Irakli Kadagishvili said the resolutions serve narrow political interests.
Six leaders sign two documents at Avaza as Tokayev counts 200 initiatives and few results
The eighth consultative meeting of Central Asia’s heads of state, the first with Azerbaijan as a full member, closed on Thursday with a joint statement and a decision on its own rules, and handed the 2027 chair to Baku. Tokayev told the five that more than 200 initiatives have been raised since 2018 and only a small part carried out, while Putin, Pezeshkian and Lukashenko landed for Friday’s CIS summit.
Three ministers answer the Irkutsk laboratory death as Moscow clears 90% of contacts
The death of a laboratory worker at Irkutsk’s anti-plague institute, pneumonia of unspecified etiology to Rospotrebnadzor and suspected pneumonic plague to ECDC, drew three answers on Wednesday: Mongolia’s health minister said temperatures are taken at the border and isolation rooms stand ready, Armenia’s minister told parliament arrivals face enhanced checks, and Georgia’s said there is no reason for panic. Moscow reported more than 90% of contacts released from observation.
MEPs vote on Georgia’s party-ban bid and Azerbaijan’s prisoners at noon in Strasbourg
The European Parliament votes between 12:00 and 14:00 Strasbourg time on Thursday on a five-group motion that condemns Georgian Dream’s lawsuit against the opposition parties and names Bidzina Ivanishvili, Irakli Kobakhidze, Shalva Papuashvili and Kakha Kaladze for sanctions, and on a six-group motion on Azerbaijan’s political prisoners that asks the member states to prepare measures under the EU’s human rights sanctions regime. Neither binds anyone outside the chamber.
Avaza’s first day ends with four CIS decisions and no word on the Caspian ministers
The CIS foreign ministers signed four documents at Avaza on Wednesday, among them a decision making 2029 the Commonwealth’s transport year, and fixed their next council for Bishkek in April 2027. Listed for the same day in the host’s programme, the Caspian states’ ministers had no readout on Turkmenistan’s state portal, TDH, the foreign ministry’s site or News Central Asia by Thursday morning as the presidents landed.
Georgia’s party-ban suit goes to the full court as Kos calls the candidacy paper-only
The Constitutional Court’s First Chamber has referred Georgian Dream’s lawsuit to ban the opposition parties to the court’s plenum, in a ruling taken without an oral hearing on 6 October that cannot be appealed. That evening Marta Kos called Georgia “a candidate country only on paper”, and the European Parliament debates the attempt to ban them on Wednesday with a vote on Thursday.
Pashinyan expects the Turkish border to open and keeps Russia’s reactor offer in play
The Armenia-Türkiye border is expected to open in the near future alongside the TRIPP project, with rail links to Azerbaijan and Türkiye to follow, Nikol Pashinyan told the first Armenia-UK Business Forum in Yerevan on 6 October, by Armenpress’s account. The same evening he said no final decision had been taken on a new nuclear plant’s technology and the Russian option is not excluded.
Tajikistan’s visa waiver with Iran takes full effect at 30 days in every 90
The memorandum between the governments of Tajikistan and Iran on cancelling visas for holders of ordinary passports entered into force in full on 5 October 2026, Tajikistan’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday as Khovar carried it at 18:00. Citizens of either state may enter, transit or stay for up to 30 days in any 90-day period, through land crossings, international airports and air routes from third countries.
The Kremlin confirms a Caspian summit on Friday that Turkmenistan’s programme post omits
Vladimir Putin will speak on 9 October at a Caspian Ecological Summit in Turkmenistan where all five Caspian leaders are to speak and a declaration on the sea’s ecological problems, shallowing included, is expected, his aide Yuri Ushakov said on Tuesday evening. The CIS foreign ministers meet at Avaza on Wednesday with Sergei Lavrov, and the Caspian states’ ministers meet the same day, by the state portal’s programme.
Moscow’s Afghanistan format ends with no statement as Overchuk reports trade up 2.5 times
The eighth round of the Moscow format consultations on Afghanistan ended on Monday without a final statement because the Afghan and Pakistani delegations could not agree a text, Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday, with the special envoys of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan at the table. Deputy prime minister Alexei Overchuk told foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi the same morning that trade had grown 2.5 times in seven months.
Georgian Dream dismisses the European Parliament’s resolution a day before the debate
Every resolution the European Parliament has adopted on Georgia in recent times is not worth the price of the paper it could be printed on, the chair of parliament’s legal affairs committee Archil Gorduladze said on Tuesday, a day before MEPs debate attempts by Georgian Dream to ban opposition parties and two days before they vote on a resolution.
Mongolia’s committees close the budget revision and push the deficit cap back to 2%
Mongolia’s Budget Standing Committee finished the fourth discussion of the 2026 budget revision on Tuesday and sent it to the plenary, the parliament’s press office said, while a joint session with the Economic Standing Committee backed, by 71.2% of those present, a proposal to keep the deficit cap in the Fiscal Stability Law at 2% of GDP against the 3% in the government’s bill.
Baku talks to Washington and Yerevan to Tehran about the same peace track on one day
Azerbaijan’s foreign minister Jeyhun Bayramov and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio discussed the strategic partnership and the normalisation process with Armenia by telephone on Monday, Baku’s foreign ministry said, while Armenia’s foreign minister Ararat Mirzoyan was received by Iran’s president Masoud Pezeshkian in Tehran and presented progress on the TRIPP route, by Yerevan’s readout.