ARMENPRESS

Ex president Levon Ter-Petrosian holds first
conference in decade

YEREVAN, JANUARY 11, ARMENPRESS: Armenia’s
ex-president Levon Ter-Petrosian, who is seeking the
highest post of the country, a decade after he was
forced to resign, vowed today not to disband the
country’s parliament-National Assembly, if he were
elected head of the country in the February 19
election.
Speaking at a news conference today, for the first
time in over a decade, he said the May 12
parliamentary elections showed that Armenia’s
opposition has ceased to exist as a political factor,
prompting his political comeback.
Ter-Petrosian said although the current parliament
does not reflect the real balance of political forces,
he would cooperate with it because `this is what we
have.’ The ex-president, who turned 63 on Wednesday,
said if elected he would respect the amended
Constitution, albeit he does not regard it as
`perfect.’
Ter-Petrosian refused to comment on forecasts of
top members of the governing Republican Party who
claim that prime minister Serzh Sarkisian is likely to
win the election with over 60 percent of the vote,
saying he is preoccupied with his own campaigning.
The former president further said that no progress
would come in normalization of Armenia’s relations
with Turkey unless progress in the resolution of the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is marked.
Ter-Petrosian refused to give his assessment to the
latest package of proposals suggested by the OSCE
Minsk group on the basic principles for peaceful
settlement of the conflict, saying he is familiar with
it but not in a position to evaluate it.
`I can say it is a document calling for
stage-by-stage settlement plus an extra element-I mean
conversations about a referendum, a plebiscite or
something like that on Nagorno-Karabakh future
status,’ he said.
Ter-Petrosian argued that the only and most
effective solution of Armenia’s national security is
not a membership in different security systems but a
peaceful co-existence with all its neighbors. The
former president also argued in favor of shifting from
mandatory military service to contract army, which
would cost less, but he added this would be possible
only after resolution of conflicts.
He said he dreams of a time when Armenia will have
good relations with all its neighbors. The news
conference was attended by tens of Ter-Petrosian’s
supporters who would interrupt him by noisy applause.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress