[19] Temporary residency status may be granted for one year, which can be extended annually, to persons who are married to or relatives of Armenians, who are studying, or who are working legally in the country.

By the seventh century BC, the kingdom had begun to weaken and invasions by Persian Medes and Scythians allowed Armenian-speaking people to become the dominant group in the region.

Local satraps (governors) had no control over the military forces in their region to prevent them diluting the power of the ruler, but they managed the civilian administration over the areas for which they governed.

[33] This would gradually change and by the first century BC, centralized rule created both efficiency and growth which allowed the kingdom to expand by subduing neighboring states.

[40] In the absence of the monarchy, the Sasanian and Byzantine Empires, maintained control over Armenia by elevating nakharar, Armenian noble houses, to rule with autonomy in their territory.

Though Arab direct rule was much more centralized and the nakharar had less autonomy, caliphates maintained the nobles, elevating the Bagratuni dynasty to a level akin to princes of Armenia.

[53][54] Within the Ottoman Empire, the government was organized to maintain harmony with disparate groups assigning responsibility to persons in accord with their position within those social categories.

[55] For six centuries, there was an internal organization that defined government functions for subjects by balancing religious and communal ties, with aptitudes and occupations without a centralized national ideology.

[56] Ottoman subjecthood was strongly tied to religion and non-Muslims, if they were ahl al-Kitāb (People of the Book), meaning Jewish, Christian, or Zoroastrian, could benefit from being subjects by agreeing to pay a tax to the sultan.

[59] By the fifteenth century a political organization, known as the millet,[54] managed the affairs of their respective religious communities and developed into the protégé system (Turkish: beratlılar, protected persons).

[61] Under the terms of these treaties, foreign powers could recruit Ottoman subjects to serve their needs as commercial agents, consuls, or interpreters, and extend to these protégés diplomatic immunity from prosecution and privileges of trade, including lowered customs tariffs.

[63] To curb the disruptive effects of Europeans in the empire, from 1806, the Ottoman government began sending communiques to the foreign embassies demanding compliance with the terms of their agreements.

[63] Failing to achieve success diplomatically, Mahmud II began a series of reforms to reorganize the government and centralize its authority and administration.

[66] In 1826, Mahmud II abolished the Guild of Janissaries and established a modern army of conscripted subjects with the intent of creating a unified Ottoman identity.

[67][68] The Edict was designed to end bribery and corruption, and to create fair tax schemes and institutions to protect the basic rights of Ottoman subjects, but Mahmud II died in 1839 before it was promulgated.

[70] The Ottoman Reform Edict of 1856 (Turkish: Islâhat Fermânı) categorized subjects by whether they were Muslim or non-Muslim, granting different civil statuses to each.

[85] During the first year of World War I, Russia armed some of the Armenian population, who hoped to achieve an independent state at the conclusion of the conflict.

[100] Hoping to establish an autonomous state, Armenians began negotiations with Russia to extend a protectorate over the population settled in Russian territory.

[101] Though the Persian and Russian states adopted policies to expand their trade relationships in this period, in 1794, Persia launched a campaign to regain control over Eastern Armenia, which succeeded in 1796.

At the conclusion of the war in 1828, by the terms of the Treaty of Turkmenchai, Russia was awarded control of Eastern Armenia and established Russian khanates in Erevan and Nakhichevan.

The policy emphasized the collective nature of the community, which was jointly responsible to pay tax, provide labor, and share in the harvest to the landlord and state.

[120] By the spring of 1916, Russian troops were occupying Western Armenia and secret agreements began being made for Russia to acquire the four Armenian provinces of Bitlis, Erzerum, Trebizond, and Van.

[121] In exchange for recognition of other spheres of influence, Britain, France, Italy, and Japan carved out territories they wished to acquire, but prior to gaining Russia's acquiescence, the government was toppled by the Russian Revolution.

[125] That year, President of the United States Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points proposed that all provinces in the former Ottoman Empire which were not ethnically Turkish should be allowed to become autonomous under international supervision.

[127][128] In the wake of the Russian Revolution, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia, joined briefly to form the Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic between April and May 1918.

[129] The federation refused to accept the territorial cessions of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty leading the Ottomans to launch an offensive against the states and capturing Batumi and Erzurum.

[153] The mass denaturalizations of Russian people living abroad resulted in approximately 1.5 million stateless persons who were unable to acquire nationality in their places of residence under restrictive policies implemented globally in the interwar years.

[164] A 1944 change to the Family Code repealed the right of a woman to sue for the father's identity and nationality to be bestowed upon a child born out of wedlock.

[165] A decree in 1945 modified the provision slightly, determining that if the parents married the child could be recognized by its father on an equal footing as children born within the marriage.

[166] After World War II, Soviet policy encouraged repatriation of the Armenian diaspora by offering them private home ownership of which the government would pay half the cost to build.