Armenian paper critical of foreign minister for raising money abroad
Armenian newspaper 168 Zham, Yerevan
20 Feb 07
Text of L. Seyranyan’s report in Armenian newspaper 168 Zham on 20
February headlined "Vardan Oskanyan starts his PR campaign"
Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanyan, who is rumoured to be a reserve
candidate of the authorities to the post of president, has started his
campaign in an absolutely different sphere. He has decided to engage
in a village charity programme.
Yesterday’s press release of the Hayastan (Armenia) Foundation said
that Vardan Oskanyan and the executive director of the Hayastan
Foundation, Naira Melkumyan, had an "important" meeting with local
representatives and patrons of the foundation in Paris on 15 February
to discuss the development programme of more than 150 villages in
Armenia and Karabakh. But it is not clear why the foreign minister is
dealing with this programme if we have an agriculture minister for
this.
But many people explain Vardan Oskanyan’s new "hobby" with his
political goals. He did not disprove that and said that he had
numerous projects and programmes which he would like to continue. For
this reason he decided to carry out his PR campaign in this way by
means of giving aid to villages. In fact, Oskanyan uses his post of
foreign minister and carries out his PR campaign at the expense of the
Armenian community abroad.
He officially announced this programme at an Armenia-diaspora forum in
September 2006. The programme will be officially submitted to the
trustees’ council of the Hayastan Foundation on 7 May 2007. Naturally,
Vardan Oskanyan will not give out his own money to spend on the
programme implementation, and it was not accidental that he said about
that for the first time at the Armenia-diaspora conference where
numerous rich members of the Armenian diaspora were
present. Naturally, they immediately understood that Oskanyan made the
statement not by chance and expected a serious approach in the form of
money. Meanwhile, waiting for the response of our "diaspora friends",
Oskanyan left for Paris.
The press release says that at the "important" meetings Armenian
Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanyan said that "the international
importance of the aid given to Armenia has increased, and at present
it is time for the diaspora to unite around the Hayastan Foundation
once again and help implement this wide-scale programme of village
development". That is to say, it seems to Oskanyan that every day the
diaspora sleeps and wakes up and thinks how to give money to Armenia.