THEY SAY GOOD-BYE THANKING EACH OTHER

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[07:00 pm] 22 May, 2006

109 deputies arrived at the Parliament hall today to be present at
the resignation of the NA President.

First Arthur Baghdasaryan read out the names of the deputies who left
the OYP faction. Then RA deputy Speaker Tigran Torosyan informed
that according to the 20th article of the NA regulations Arthur
Baghdasaryan has submitted a letter of resignation from the post of
the NA President.

Arthur Baghdasaryan started his resignation speech thanking all
the deputies irregardless of their political beliefs and attitudes
towards him, the NA staff, the journalists and his colleague parties –
the ARF and the Republican Party.

Then he started criticizing. “Social surveys show that 70% of the
population of Armenia is afraid. We will fight against the society
of fear. We will fight for the free society”, Arthur Baghdasaryan
announced today. He said that if the present rates of birth and death
are preserved, even if no one leaves the country, in 2050 there will
be 500 thousand people left.

“When we said that the state must support young families they said it
was populism. It is not populism; it is the road to the development
of the country. We think that social-economic reforms must be
deeper. Being part of the authorities for three years we tried to
introduce our approaches. Many good things have been done, but many
have been omitted. And now we have decided to follow our own route”.

After Arthur Baghdasaryan, Mher Shahgeldyan, the President of the NA
Standing Committee on Defense, National Security and Internal Affairs,
and Gagik Mkheyan, the President of the NA Standing Committee on
Social Affairs, Health Care and Environment resigned too. After that
the members of the OYP left the hall.

Before that Tigran Torosyan who presided over the session thanked
Arthur Baghdasaryan and the OYP for the joint work for the last
three years.

By the way, Arthur Baghdasaryan announced that in 2003 he was honestly
for Robert Kocharyan.