At a press conference, Armenia’s second president Robert Kocharyan said that Armenia’s European integration is merely “decorative and imitative,” arguing that the government’s recent steps, including the creation of a European Integration Department at the Foreign Ministry, are for show.
“Something decorative is being announced. Аn imitation. Yesterday, the Foreign Ministry even created a European Integration Department. It’s very interesting: there’s no integration, but there’s a department,” Kocharyan said, according to Factor.am .
He went on to criticize what he called a “leadership crisis” in Europe, referring to an image showing European leaders allegedly waiting in a corridor of the White House to meet U.S. President Donald Trump. “I saw that picture… Macron, Scholz, and others sitting in line, waiting. I tried to imagine that same scene with Jacques Chirac, Helmut Kohl, Schröder, Berlusconi. Could anyone picture them sitting there, waiting?” Kocharyan remarked.
However, the image was not real, it was AI-generated, first posted on August 17 on X by user @Greg4Patriot, whose account is known for sharing digitally fabricated images.
The fake picture depicted seven figures, including three women, though in reality only two female leaders — Ursula von der Leyen and Giorgia Meloni — attended the meeting with Trump.
Kocharyan’s remarks were part of a broader critique of both Armenia’s foreign policy direction and Europe’s political standing, which he described as suffering from a “serious leadership deficit.”
