Zareh Sinanyan sent to Istanbul for three days to meet the Armenian community
- Published
- Place
- Istanbul, Turkey
- Event date
- Past event —
Summary
Armenia’s High Commissioner for Diaspora Affairs, Zareh Sinanyan, is on a mission to Istanbul from 10 to 12 November, by decision of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. He is due to meet representatives of the city’s Armenian community: schools, cultural centres and organisations, as well as people of Armenian origin active in various sectors. The stated aim is to strengthen existing ties and discuss possible areas of cooperation. He is accompanied by Hovhannes Aleksanyan, head of the department for the integration of repatriates, and Narine Kyureghyan, head of a division in that department. The trip coincides with Nikol Pashinyan’s visit to Antalya for COP31 on Wednesday, 11 November.
The decision was made public on 10 November. It runs to a few lines: a three-day mission to Turkey, a three-person delegation, a list of people to meet. No official meeting with the Turkish authorities has been announced.
Zareh Sinanyan knows diaspora communities well. A former mayor of Glendale, California, one of the most Armenian cities in the United States, he has headed the Office of the High Commissioner for Diaspora Affairs, attached to the prime minister, since 2019.
A community apart
Istanbul’s Armenians form the largest Armenian community in Turkey: several tens of thousands of people, according to estimates, with their own schools, churches, press and patriarchate. They live in a country that has no diplomatic relations with Armenia and whose border with it has been closed since 1993.
Their ties with Yerevan are long-standing but rarely simple. Official Armenian visits are watched closely, in Ankara as in the diaspora. In June 2025, during his own visit to Istanbul, Nikol Pashinyan met Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and then members of the Armenian community.
A busy calendar between Yerevan and Ankara
The mission falls in the middle of a dense sequence. On Wednesday, Nikol Pashinyan travels to Antalya for the COP31 leaders’ summit; it is his third visit to Turkey. The day before, Turkish Transport Minister Abdulkadir Uraloğlu said his country had completed preparations to open its road and rail crossings with Armenia.
On 6 November, the Armenian prime minister said he was convinced the two countries would establish diplomatic relations “in the near future”. On the Turkish side, the transport minister recalled that Ankara would take Azerbaijan’s “sensitivities” into account.
Why integration officials
The make-up of the delegation is worth noting. The two officials accompanying Zareh Sinanyan work on the integration of repatriates, that is, diaspora Armenians who settle in Armenia. The announcement does not say whether the subject will be raised in Istanbul. But repatriation is among the priorities the government has set out in its diaspora policy.
Analysis
The message is above all symbolic. Yerevan is showing that it sees Istanbul’s Armenians as a diaspora community in their own right, one it wants to work with, and not merely as a topic in its relationship with Ankara. The timing is not neutral: Armenian-Turkish normalisation is moving forward, the border is technically ready, and Nikol Pashinyan is in Turkey the same day. For the community, these direct contacts could open up practical cooperation with Armenia, in education, culture or resettlement. They also expose it more. The outcome of the mission will show whether specific projects emerge.
Possible consequences
Zareh Sinanyan and his delegation remain in Istanbul until 12 November. No detailed programme or agreement has been announced.
