YEREVAN, Armenia (AP) — A prominent cleric in Armenia was sentenced to two years in prison on Friday after being found guilty of calling for an overthrow of the government.
Archbishop Mikael Ajapahyan was arrested in June and accused of being part of an alleged coup plot against the government of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.
The cleric was found guilty on Sept. 24 of calling for the government to be overthrown. His lawyer, Ara Zohrabyan, condemned the verdict as being politically motivated.
Ajapahyan was prosecuted for merely expressing an opinion, said Zohrabyan, who vowed to appeal the verdict.
The Armenian Apostolic Church also condemned the verdict as politically motivated, describing it as “one of the clear manifestations of the authorities’ anti-church campaign.”
The authorities had tried to detain Ajapahyan in June, which led to security forces facing off with crowds at the headquarters of the Armenian Apostolic Church. Videos circulated online showed clergymen jostling with police.
After Armenia’s National Security Service urged Ajapahyan to appear before authorities, local media showed him entering the building of Armenia’s Investigative Committee. The following day, a court in Yerevan ordered to place Ajapahyan in pretrial detention.
Ajapahyan's arrest followed that of Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan, who lead the Sacred Struggle opposition movement. He was accused of plotting a sabotage campaign to overthrow Pashinyan, charges that his lawyer rejected as “fiction.”
In April 2024, tens of thousands of demonstrators called for Pashinyan’s ouster after Armenia agreed to hand over control of several border villages to Azerbaijan and to normalize relations between the neighbors.
Sacred Struggle has bitterly opposed the handover of the border villages. Although the territorial concession was the movement’s core issue, it has expanded to a wide array of complaints about Pashinyan, who came to power in 2018.
Russian-Armenian billionaire Samvel Karapetyan, who is another vocal critic of Pashinyan, was also arrested in June on charges of calling for the government’s overthrow, which he denied.
Armenia and Azerbaijan have been locked in territorial disputes since the early 1990s, as various parts of the Soviet Union pressed for independence from Moscow. After the USSR collapsed in 1991, ethnic Armenian separatist forces backed by the Armenian military won control of Azerbaijan’s region of Karabakh and nearby territories.
In 2020, Azerbaijan recaptured broad swaths of territory in and around Karabakh. A lightning military campaign in September 2023 saw Azerbaijan fully reclaim control of the region, and Armenia later handed over the border villages.
In August, the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan shook hands at a White House summit before signing a deal aimed at ending decades of conflict. A formal peace treaty was initiated by the two countries' foreign ministers at that meeting, but it is yet to be signed by the leaders and ratified by the countries' parliament.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan attends a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Senate Palace of the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Friday, Sept. 26, 2025. (Ramil Sitdikov/Pool Photo via AP)
The U.N. Security Council scheduled an emergency meeting Thursday to discuss Iran's deadly protests at the request of the United States, even as President Donald Trump left unclear what actions he would take against the Islamic state.
Tehran appeared to make conciliatory statements in an effort to defuse the situation after Trump threatened to take action to stop further killing of protesters, including the execution of anyone detained in Tehran’s bloody crackdown on nationwide protests.
Iran’s crackdown on the demonstrations has killed at least 2,615, the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency reported. The death toll exceeds any other round of protest or unrest in Iran in decades and recalls the chaos surrounding the country’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Iran closed its airspace to commercial flights for hours without explanation early Thursday and some personnel at a key U.S. military base in Qatar were advised to evacuate. The U.S. Embassy in Kuwait also ordered its personnel to “temporary halt” travel to the multiple military bases in the small Gulf Arab country.
Iran previously closed its airspace during the 12-day war against Israel in June.
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China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi has spoken with his counterpart in Iran, who said the situation was “now stable,” China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.
Abbas Araghchi said “he hoped China will play a greater role in regional peace and stability” during the talks, according to the statement from the ministry.
“China opposes imposing its will on other countries, and opposes a return to the ‘law of the jungle’,” Wang said.
“China believes that the Iranian government and people will unite, overcome difficulties, maintain national stability, and safeguard their legitimate rights and interests,” he added. “China hopes all parties will cherish peace, exercise restraint, and resolve differences through dialogue. China is willing to play a constructive role in this regard.”
“We are against military intervention in Iran,” Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told journalists in Istanbul on Thursday. “Iran must address its own internal problems… They must address their problems with the region and in global terms through diplomacy so that certain structural problems that cause economic problems can be addressed.”
Ankara and Tehran enjoy warm relations despite often holding divergent interests in the region.
Fidan said the unrest in Iran was rooted in economic conditions caused by sanctions, rather than ideological opposition to the government.
Iranians have been largely absent from an annual pilgrimage to Baghdad, Iraq, to commemorate the death of Imam Musa al-Kadhim, one of the twelve Shiite imams.
Many Iranian pilgrims typically make the journey every year for the annual religious rituals.
Streets across Baghdad were crowded with pilgrims Thursday. Most had arrived on foot from central and southern provinces of Iraq, heading toward the shrine of Imam al-Kadhim in the Kadhimiya district in northern Baghdad,
Adel Zaidan, who owns a hotel near the shrine, said the number of Iranian visitors this year compared to previous years was very small. Other residents agreed.
“This visit is different from previous ones. It lacks the large numbers of Iranian pilgrims, especially in terms of providing food and accommodation,” said Haider Al-Obaidi.
Europe’s largest airline group said Thursday it would halt night flights to and from Tel Aviv and Jordan's capital Amman for five days, citing security concerns as fears grow that unrest in Iran could spiral into wider regional violence.
Lufthansa — which operates Swiss, Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines and Eurowings — said flights would run only during daytime hours from Thursday through Monday “due to the current situation in the Middle East.” It said the change would ensure its staff — which includes unionized cabin crews and pilots -- would not be required to stay overnight in the region.
The airline group also said its planes would bypass Iranian and Iraqi airspace, key corridors for air travel between the Middle East and Asia.
Iran closed its airspace to commercial flights for several hours early Thursday without explanation.
A spokesperson for Israel’s Airport Authority, which oversees Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport, said the airport was operating as usual.
Iranian state media has denied claims that a young man arrested during Iran’s recent protests was condemned to death. The statement from Iran’s judicial authorities on Thursday contradicted what it said were “opposition media abroad” which claimed the young man had been quickly sentenced to death during a violent crackdown on anti-government protests in the country.
State television didn’t immediately give any details beyond his name, Erfan Soltani. Iranian judicial authorities said Soltani was being held in a detention facility outside of the capital. Alongside other protesters, he has been accused of “propaganda activities against the regime,” state media said.
New Zealand’s Foreign Minister Winston Peters said Thursday that his government was “appalled by the escalation of violence and repression” in Iran.
“We condemn the brutal crackdown being carried out by Iran’s security forces, including the killing of protesters,” Peters posted on X.
“Iranians have the right to peaceful protest, freedom of expression, and access to information – and that right is currently being brutally repressed,” he said.
Peters said his government had expressed serious concerns to the Iranian Embassy in Wellington.
A demonstrator lights a cigarette with a burning poster depicting Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during a rally in support of Iran's anti-government protests, in Holon, Israel, Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Protesters participate in a demonstration in support of the nationwide mass protests in Iran against the government, in Berlin, Germany, Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
Protesters participate in a demonstration in support of the nationwide mass protests in Iran against the government, in Berlin, Germany, Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
