Serzh Sargsyan was sworn in as president at the
Yerevan Opera House on 9 April 2008. Referring to the "painful events" that followed the election, he " everybody to look forward, together, to seek and find the way for reconciliation, development, and future of Armenia." 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 from 5.50 to 5.25." 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. and pledged to comply with the
Council of Europe's demands for an end to the government's crackdown on the opposition. Civil society also grew considerably during Sargsyan's presidency, with the number of non-governmental organizations growing at a higher rate and with civic activists succeeding in raising public awareness and holding important campaigns in the sphere of human rights, environmental protection and social justice. However, according to Freedom House, public advocacy still had limited impact on public policy. 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 ranked 19th freest among the 43 countries in the Europe region. 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.
Foreign policy Nagorno-Karabakh 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 continued 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 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 continued negotiations with Azerbaijan and 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 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. Sargsyan blames the Azerbaijani side for hampering the peace process and for pursuing an openly anti-Armenian stance. According to him, the
anti-Armenian policies of Azerbaijan, such as "state-supported falsifications of history", "hostile propaganda against Armenia and Armenians" and "military build-up" prove that Azerbaijan does not want peace. 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." Sargsyan has also clearly stated:The Armenophobic and aggressive stance of Azerbaijan reinforces our conviction that Nagorno-Karabakh has no future within Azerbaijan. Moreover, Azerbaijan has neither legal nor political or moral grounds to claim over Nagorno-Karabakh. , 23 January 2012 In his speech made at the British
Chatham House Sargsyan said: Our belief is that the settlement of the Karabakh conflict should be based on human rights and the will of the Karabakh people… It is the only way to achieve lasting, feasible, and peaceful settlement. The alternative to this settlement is the forcing of the Karabakh people back into Azerbaijan, which will inevitably lead to attempts of new ethnic cleansing of Armenians in Karabakh. There is no alternative here." , Ilham Aliyev and Serzh Sargsyan in Sochi, 9 August 2014 , 16 May 2016 , 24 July 2017 Responding to the persistent war rhetoric of Azerbaijan, Sargsyan has condemned it as a violation of the norms of the international law, as the parties had signed a truce which Azerbaijan, the "defeated aggressor", had asked for. He repeatedly said that his country is categorically against the resumption of military hostilities, but at the same time is ready to counter any military aggression. In 2014, Sargsyan stated "We don't want war and never wanted, but at that time [i.e. during Nagorno-Karabakh war] we had to defend our Motherland. If the time comes again, this time our blow will be final and deadly." In this regard, Sargsyan declared that in the case of military aggression from Azerbaijan "Armenia will have no other choice but to recognize the
Nagorno-Karabakh Republic de jure and to employ all its capabilities to ensure the security of the people of
Artsakh." Sargsyan met with Ilham Aliyev again in Russian-mediated talks in
Kazan in June 2011, where the two sides reportedly came close to an agreement. The basic principles discussed at Kazan envisioned the return of five of the seven districts of Azerbaijan occupied by Armenia in exchange for "interim status" for Nagorno-Karabakh and the deployment of international peacekeepers, with the final status of the region to be decided by a legally-binding referendum. The proposals made at Kazan were ultimately rejected by the Azerbaijani side. As for the position of Armenia concerning the independence of
Kosovo, Sargsyan stated that "Armenia's possible recognition of
Kosovo's independence will not strain the Armenian-Russian relations" but also noted that the "Kosovo recognition issue needs serious discussion... Armenia has always been an adherent to the right of nations to
self-determination and in this aspect we welcome Kosovo's independence." In April 2016, Sargsyan led Armenia through the
2016 Nagorno-Karabakh conflict (also known as the Four-Day War or the April War), the most significant outbreak of violence on the
Nagorno-Karabakh line of contact after the 1994 ceasefire and before the
2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war. The four days of fighting resulted in at least dozens of deaths and the loss of approximately 800 hectares of land. Sargsyan described the outcome of the four-day clashes as a victory for Armenia, although he faced criticism for shortcomings during the clashes as well as accusations that he had agreed to cede territory to Azerbaijan in the wake of the fighting. In order to stop this purported cession of territory, a group of armed men calling themselves "Daredevils of Sasun"
seized a police headquarters in Yerevan in July 2016 and took hostages, demanding Sargsyan's resignation. He denied that he had deliberately delayed the negotiation process in order to maintain the status quo or that he had ever held the view that "not one inch of land" could be handed over to Azerbaijan in order to resolve the conflict. 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. 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's policy of rapprochement with Turkey received controversial reaction among the Armenian people. While one part was for the opening of the border and fostering trade with Turkey the other part was concerned that by this move Armenia would be forced to make concessions to Turkey in the most vital and strategic matters. Armenian influential opposition parties, most notably the
Armenian Revolutionary Federation were categorically against the signing of the protocols, given the recognition of the existing Turkish-Armenian border and the setting up of a joint commission of historians researching the Armenian Genocide, as envisioned by the protocols. They considered these steps as a sellout and staged mass protests against the signing of the protocols. The
Armenian Diaspora was also largely opposed to this type of reconciliation with Turkey, arguing (despite Sargsyan's assurances to the contrary) that this would jeopardize the international recognition of the
Armenian genocide as well as the prospects of legitimate territorial claims of Armenians from Turkey. The process of reconciliation, however, was suspended after a year. In Armenia, before sending the protocols to the parliament, it was sent to the Constitutional Court to have their approval. The Constitutional Court made references to the preamble of the protocols underlying three main issues. This was regarded by the Turkish Government as effectively revising the protocols and thus the reason to back down from the process. As a consequence, the Turkish Parliament did not ratify the protocols. The Armenian side accused Turkey to tie the reconciliation process with the resolution of the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, expecting concessions on the Armenian side, which was unacceptable for the latter. Sargsyan explained the suspension of the reconciliation process by the Armenian side in the following way: For a whole year, Turkey's senior officials have not spared public statements in the language of preconditions. For a whole year, Turkey has done everything to protract time and fail the process... We consider unacceptable the pointless efforts of making the dialogue between Armenia and Turkey an end in itself; from this moment on, we consider the current phase of normalization exhausted."
Protests against Sargsyan's presidency Major protests against Sargsyan's regime began in 2011, with the president's 2008 rival
Levon Ter-Petrosyan 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. In July 2016, thousands of Armenians protested in the capital Yerevan in support of the "Daredevils of Sasun," an armed group that stormed police headquarters in Yerevan and took hostages while calling for the release of all political prisoners and the resignation of president Serzh Sargsyan. The National Security Service of Armenia called the takeover (which resulted in the deaths of three policemen) a terrorist attack, but a growing number of Armenians disagreed with that assessment. == Prime Minister (2018) ==