PARTICIPANTS OF ARTSAKH FREEDOM FIGHT DEMAND TO STOP NEGOTIATIONS TILL
“FORMATION OF LEGAL AUTHORITIES”

YEREVAN, MARCH 24, NOYAN TAPAN. A group of volunteers and figures of
the Artsakh freedom fight made a statement on March 23, in which they
express a deep indignation “relating to the RA high-ranking officials’
defeatist, even Turks-pleasing process of the negotiations on the
Karabakh settlement.” According to the document, at the operative
gathering of the RA Armed Forces’ high-ranking staff, Defence Minister
Serge Sargsian stated: “What did we want in 88? We wanted the NKAR to
join Armenia, And what else do we want now? We weren’t liberating the
land during the war, but we were annihilating weapon enplacements.

What a liberated land? That is the security zone. No Armenians have
lived there during the last hundred years. Which of you may prove that
Aghdam was Armenian. And placing of peace-keeping troops in the
security zone is beneficial for us.” “The Minister, instead of giving
a worthy counterblow to the anti-Armenian hysteria promoted in
Azerbaijan day by day and to the growing war threat, many times has
already made an attempt to trecherously break the fighting spirit of
the Armenian people and army, to sow defeatist and panic moods among
the highest command and soldiers. This successive befaviour of the
last years is provided by the RA President’s unquenchable wish to own
the post,” is said in the statement.

According to the document authors, “not only Aghdan but many
territories after it are our Fatherland. Undoubtedly Nakhijevan as
well, which was given to the false state of Azerbaijan by the
Russian-Turkish agreement making Armenians victims, Karvajar,
Kashatagh, Kovsakan, Bargushat, Dizak and Haband are unseparable parts
of Armenia and differ from either Martakert and Hadrut or Syunik and
Lori in nothing.” Participants of the Artsakh freedom fight state that
they won’t allow “to sacrifice the Fatherland liberated at the cost of
life of the best Armenian-borns in the war imposed by Azerbaijan to
anybody’s motives aspiring to power.” They also insist that “the
people taken the power by force have no right to present themselves on
behalf of the Armenian people and Armenia,” and “their future
officiating is fraught with disastrous results.” The authors of the
document demand “to stop the negotiations held with Azerbaijan on the
Karabakh issue till formation of legal and national authorities in
Armenia,” and call on “parties of Armenia to undertake the process of
dischargement of the acting RA Minister of Defence.” Arkadi
Karapetian, the First Commander of the Defence Forces of Artsakh,
Field Commander Paykar Ghalumian, rocket-artillery troops officer,
Zhirayr Sefilian, the Commander of the Shushi special battalion, Murad
Ohanian, a member of the “Independence Army” union, Voskan Gulumian,
the Special Regiment Field Commander, Armen Yeghian, the Deputy
Commander of the NKR Defence Army military unit, Gagik Gabrielian, a
member of the “Mahapartner” (prisoners sentenced to death) regiment
and other participants of the Artsakh freedom fight.