LEADER OF ARMENIAN NATIONALISTIC PARTY ACCUSES WEST OF TRYING TO RESHAPE THE MIDDLE EAST
Armenpress
Sept 04 2006
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 4, ARMENPRESS: The leader of a minor Armenian
nationalistic party accused Saturday the West of engineering a new
re-division of the Middle East. Armen Avetisian, head of a party called
‘Armenian Aryan Union’ and heads of three other small nationalistic
parties told a news conference they had come to this conclusion
after careful examination of a story and a concomitant map in a
U.S. military magazine.
They said the map shows a new independent state of Kurdistan that
is to be build in the region at the expense of parts of Iran, Syria,
Iraq and a chunk of eastern Anatolia in Turkey, which Armenians refer
to as ‘Western Armenia."
Armen Avetisian claimed the map was a clear sign of the globalization
of the Middle East, a process designed and carried out by the West. He
said the map shows Armenia without Nagorno-Karabakh, Nakhichevan
(an enclave in Azerbaijan) but is given a small portion of eastern
Turkey with Mount Ararat.
He said this is an attempt to build a Kurdistan state on historical
Armenian lands, saying also Armenians must be able to intervene to
foil these plans. He went as far as to say that Armenia and Turkey,
two historical rivals, could even join to fight back this scheme
together with Iran, Syria and some Arab countries.
Avetisian, known for his controversial views, was arrested in
January 2005 and after two months in custody was given a suspended
three-year prison sentence by a Yerevan court for inciting inter-ethnic
enmity. The court said in a series of newspaper interviews Avetisian
branded Jews as enemies of Armenia and called for their expulsion
from the country.
Avetisian also never made good on his repeated pledges to publicize
a list of Armenian government officials who he claims are homosexuals.