JAILED NATIONALIST DEFENDS TER-PETROSIAN ON KARABAKH
By Emil Danielyan

Radio Liberty, Czech Republic
Dec 20 2007

Former President Levon Ter-Petrosian’s conciliatory discourse on
Nagorno-Karabakh prompted on Thursday unlikely support from a jailed
nationalist activist and government critic opposed to Armenian
territorial concessions to Azerbaijan.

Zhirayr Sefilian, a prominent veteran of the war in Karabakh, condemned
as "slander" government allegations that Ter-Petrosian is ready to
place the Armenian-populated territory back under Azerbaijani rule. In
a statement released from his prison, Sefilian said although he has
"serious disagreements" with Ter-Petrosian on the issue, he believes
that the latter "would not rush to resolve the conflict" in the event
of his victory in the February 19 presidential election.

"I am categorically against the notion that Levon is a president who
would surrender Artsakh (Karabakh)," he said. "True, we have serious
disagreements with him on the Artsakh issue, the most important of
them being our refusal to see any document envisaging territorial
concessions on the negotiation table."

"At the same time I am convinced that deep down, as Armenian people,
Levon Ter-Petrosian and his allies are also against conceding
territories, but because they are more pragmatic than us, they believe
that the conflict can not be resolved without concessions," he added.

Ending his nearly decade-long silence with a series of recent
speeches, Ter-Petrosian has said he continues to believe that Armenia’s
sustainable development is impossible without a compromise peace deal
with Azerbaijan and accused the current Armenian leaders of dragging
out the conflict’s resolution. He has said at the same time that they
are now ready to accept the kind of a peace plan which he advocated
before his resignation in 1998 and which they rejected as "defeatist."

President Robert Kocharian, Prime Minister Serzh Sarkisian and their
allies have responded to these statements with renewed allegations
that the ex-president wants to "surrender" Karabakh to Azerbaijan.

Sefilian, who is regarded as a political prisoner by his supporters
and many other opposition figures, denied such claims, pointing to
Ter-Petrosian’s September 21 remark that the situation is now so
unfavorable for the Armenian side that he does not know what should
be done about it. "That is, Levon Ter-Petrosian hinted that he would
not rush to solve the problem," claimed the Lebanese citizen of
Armenian descent.

The main aim of Ter-Petrosian’s bid to return to power, continued
Sefilian, is to "restore our statehood and constitutional order,"
rather than make peace with Azerbaijan. "Therefore, supporting his
return to power does not mean being in favor of ceding the liberated
territories," he said.

Sefilian and another war veteran, Vartan Malkhasian, were arrested
in December last year just days after founding a new pressure
group opposed to Armenian troop withdrawal from any of the occupied
Azerbaijani territories around Karabakh. They both were charged with
plotting a violent overthrow of the government. Only Malkhasian was
convicted of the coup charge by a Yerevan district court last July.

He was sentenced to two years in prison.

Sefilian was handed a 18-month jail term under another article of
the Criminal Code that deals with illegal arms possession.