Nikol Pashinyan facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Nikol Pashinyan
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| Նիկոլ Փաշինյան | |
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Pashinyan in 2023
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| 16th Prime Minister of Armenia | |
| Assumed office 8 May 2018 |
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| President | Armen Sarkissian Alen Simonyan (acting) Vahagn Khachaturyan |
| Preceded by | Karen Karapetyan (acting) |
| Member of the National Assembly of Armenia | |
| In office 6 May 2012 – 8 May 2018 |
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| Parliamentary group | Way Out Alliance (2012–2017) Armenian National Congress (2017–2018) |
| Constituency | Yerevan Districts Kentron, Nork-Marash, Erebuni, Nubarashen |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 1 June 1975 Ijevan, Armenian SSR, Soviet Union |
| Political party | Civil Contract (2013–present) |
| Other political affiliations |
My Step Alliance (2018–2021) Way Out Alliance (2016–2018) Armenian National Congress (2008–2012) Impeachment Union (2007) |
| Spouse | Anna Hakobyan |
| Children | 4 |
| Education | Yerevan State University |
| Signature |  |
Nikol Vovayi Pashinyan (Armenian: Նիկոլ Վովայի Փաշինյան, born 1 June 1975) is an Armenian politician serving as the prime minister of Armenia since 8 May 2018.
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Early life and education
Nikol Pashinyan was born on 1 June 1975 in Ijevan, Armenia. His father, Vova Pashinyan (1940–2020), worked as a football and volleyball coach and as a physical education teacher. His mother Svetlana died when he was 12 and he was mostly raised by his stepmother, Yerjanik. He graduated from the Ijevan Secondary School N1 in 1991. Pashinyan studied journalism at Yerevan State University (YSU) from 1991 to 1995. He was expelled from the university before graduating.
Journalism career
Pashinyan founded his own newspaper in 1998, which was shut down a year later for libel. He was sentenced for one year for defamation against then Minister of National Security Serzh Sargsyan. He edited the newspaper Haykakan Zhamanak ("Armenian Times") from 1999 to 2012. A supporter of Armenia's first president Levon Ter-Petrosyan, he was highly critical of second president Robert Kocharyan, Defense Minister Serzh Sargsyan, and their allies. Pashinyan was also critical of Armenia's close relations with Russia, and promoted establishing closer relations with Turkey instead.
Political career
During the 1998 Armenian presidential election, Pashinyan was a member of the election office of presidential candidate Ashot Bleyan, former Minister of Education and Science under president Levon Ter-Petrosyan. Pashinyan was a dedicated supporter of Ter-Petrosyan, who made a political comeback prior to the 2008 presidential election. Pashinyan was one of the leaders of Ter-Petrosyan's supporters in the post-election protests in February and March 2008; the protests were dispersed by security forces on March 1, resulting in the deaths of ten people. Convicted of organizing mass disorders, he went into hiding until mid-2009. He was sentenced to seven years in prison for his role in the protests. He was released in May 2011 as part of a general amnesty. He was elected to parliament from Ter-Petrosyan's broad opposition coalition, the Armenian National Congress, in 2012.
Pashinyan later distanced himself from Ter-Petrosyan on political grounds. He was the leader of the 2018 Armenian revolution which forced Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan and his government to resign. He was elected acting prime minister by parliament on 8 May 2018 and won snap parliamentary elections in December 2018. Pashinyan's victory had originally been heralded by some observers as an improvement in democracy. Pashinyan's new government included multiple liberal western NGO activists being appointed to senior positions, as well as supporters from the Velvet Revolution who had no previous political experience.
Pashinyan led Armenia through the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War, the most recent and significant outbreak of violence due to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Armenia with the self-proclaimed Republic of Artsakh and its neighbor Azerbaijan. The war, which was ended after 44 days of fighting by a trilateral ceasefire agreement signed by Pashinyan on 9 November 2020, resulted in significant human, material and territorial losses for the Armenian side. Pashinyan's government was criticized within Armenia for its management of the war. Following the war, Pashinyan was accused of being a traitor and faced protests and calls for his resignation. Despite the protests and a declaration by 40 high-ranking military officers calling for his resignation (which Pashinyan described as a coup attempt), Pashinyan resisted calls to hand over political power. On 25 April 2021, Pashinyan announced his formal resignation to allow snap elections to be held in June, although he remained as acting prime minister in the leadup to the elections. His party won the 2021 election, receiving more than half of all votes.
Personal life
Pashinyan is married to Anna Hakobyan, a journalist whom he met at YSU. They have three daughters and a son. She has been editor-in-chief of Haykakan Zhamanak since 2012. Pashinyan and Hakobyan are not officially married, nor did they have a church ceremony. Pashinyan stated that he hopes they can get married at an Armenian Apostolic church one day. Their son, Ashot, volunteered to serve in Artsakh (Karabakh) in 2018 and again in October 2020 during the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war.
Besides his native Armenian, Pashinyan speaks Russian, English, and French. However, he prefers to use Armenian in interviews.
Pashinyan said that he and his family are adherents of the Armenian Apostolic Church. "One must visit the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin from time to time. This is also the most convenient place to reflect on the past and the future," he stated.
Images for kids
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Protesters on 1 March 2008
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Pashinyan announcing his nomination as prime minister at a Civil Contract rally in Freedom Square, 10 September 2016
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Pashinyan on 13 April 2018 in Freedom Square, Yerevan at the end of his two-week-long march.
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Pashinyan surrounded by journalists in Yerevan.
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Pashinyan speaking to supporters through a loudspeaker gathered at the General Prosecutor's Office.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin at the trilateral talks with Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev in Sochi, Russia, 31 October 2022
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Pashinyan with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev in Davos, Switzerland in 2019. Both Armenia and Azerbaijan are members of EU's Eastern Partnership.
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Pashinyan in Kazakhstan, 8 November 2018
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Pashinyan and President of the European Parliament Roberta Metsola in Brussels, 20 October 2023
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Nikol Pashinyan and Vladimir Putin in Sochi, 14 May 2018.
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Pashinyan with Vladimir Putin, Nursultan Nazarbayev, Saad Hariri and Shavkat Mirziyoyev at the FIFA World Cup in Russia, 14 June 2018
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Pashinyan at the third inauguration of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, 3 June 2023
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Nikol Pashinyan and Ali Larijani in Iran
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Pashinyan and Catholicos Karekin II, December 2018
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A poster on a car in Yerevan depicting Pashinyan, 2 May 2018. The text reads: "Nikol Prime Minister"
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See also
In Spanish: Nikol Pashinián para niños
