"WE WILL RETURN NO TERRITORIES"

A1+
[06:24 pm] 07 June, 2007

Today members of "Peace" civil initiative handed over a protest
memorandum to the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs, the RA Prime Minister
Serge Sargsyan and the RA Minister of Foreign Affairs Vardan
Oskanyan. A small incident took place between the police and the
demonstrators. After the incident the demonstrators moved to the
building of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, then to the Government
building.

The reason of the action was the announcements of the OSCE Minsk
Group Co-Chairs before the forthcoming meeting of the Armenian
and Azerbaijani Presidents in St Petersburg. "The Armenian nation
will never accept any of the mediators’ proposals which presuppose
that Armenia will be connected with Karabakh with a corridor. The
Armenians will never accept that the former region of Aghdam, which
is of strategic importance, and, particularly, the bank of Araks may
be returned to Azerbaijan", was said in the memorandum.

The participants of the action demanded to reveal the content of the
disputed questions and "stop misleading the Armenian nation".

"They should answer if they have consciousness, if they do not have it
they will carry out their preferable project", said Toros Sefilyan,
head of the Shushi Battalion and brother of Zhirayr Sefilyan who is
in the isolation cell of the National Security Service. Khachatur
Vardanyan, Head of the Department for Regional Administration
and Local Self-Governance, met the demonstrators in front of the
Government building and took the responsibility of handing over the
two letters to Serge Sargsayan. One of the letters concerned the
liberated territories, the other one – to the case of Zhirayr Sefilyan.

The demonstrators demanded releasing Zhirayr Sefilyan and Vardan
Malkhasyan, who were detained in December last year for the appeals
to fail the constitutional order. The demonstrators hoped that their
problems would be positively solved.

Members of a number of organisations participated in the demonstration
today. Among them there was "Alliance" Civil Initiative, "Mitq"
analytical centre, members of "Armenian volunteers’ unite", "Protection
of liberated territories" social imitatives and others.