Kazarian reached a career-best rating of 2320 in April 2016 after performing well at the Reykjavik Open, one of the world's leading open tournaments, and the high-profile Grenke Chess Open. In particular, she scored 6½/10 in Reykjavik, highlighted by a win against Björn Thorfinnsson, an Icelandic IM rated 2410. Since that peak, Kazarian's rating has steadily declined. In the middle of the year, she had even scores at both the open under-20 youth national championship and the overall women's national championships, underperforming based on her rating in both instances. Nonetheless, she had a strong finish to the year highlighted by achieving her third and final WIM norm at the 2016 Baku Olympiad. She was officially awarded the WIM title in 2017. Kazarian was also in contention to win the under-16 division of the World Youth Chess Championship in Khanty-Mansiysk. She entered the last round in joint first with Aakanksha Hagawane at 8/10, but lost her last game to Mobina Alinasab while Aakanksha was able to win. As a result, Kazarian finished in fourth place.