ARMENIAN PRESIDENT CRITICAL OF OPPOSITION’S ATTITUDE TO CONSTITUTIONAL REFORMS

Public Television of Armenia, Yerevan

24 Aug 05

[Presenter] Armenian President Robert Kocharyan today expressed his
opinion in connection with constitutional reforms in the country.

Kocharyan stressed that the reformed version of the constitution
is an impartial document which has been highly rated by the best
European experts and everybody, including the opposition which has
distanced itself from the process without waiting for the results of
the constitutional reforms, will gain from this.

[Correspondent] What do you expect from the process of constitutional
reforms and the forthcoming extraordinary session of parliament when
the opposition has issued a statement that they refuse to accept the
package of constitutional reforms?

[Kocharyan] First of all, I want speak about the draft constitutional
amendments which are being discussed now. I am confident that this
is a document of high quality which has been drawn up together
with the best European experts and the [Council of Europe] Venice
Commission. We should not accept the constitutional reforms as a
compulsory document. First of all, it is necessary for our people
and our country.

When they say that an official of the Council of Europe points out
that if the document is not accepted, you will have problems and so on,
this also is an important issue. First of all, it will be our basic law
and we need it. This is an important way of integrating into Europe.

Now I want to speak about the opposition’s attitude. The opposition
refused to cooperate with the coalition on reforming the constitution
from the first day. I think that they thought the authorities would
not take radical steps that would bring our constitution completely
into line with European standards. They believed that the authorities
would have problems with the Council of Europe Venice Commission and
the opposition would use this situation in order to solve domestic
political tasks.

In fact, we see eye-to-eye with the Council of Europe and the
opposition has found itself offside and created a situation when the
positive results of the reforms will look like the authorities’ victory
and the opposition’s defeat. This is a more dangerous situation. I
am confident that the constitutional reforms should not be looked at
from such a point of view. This cannot be the authorities’ victory
or the opposition’s defeat. This can be only the victory of our people.