NKR SHOULD PROCLAIM LIBERATED TERRITORIES ITS PROPERTY THAT CAN’T BE HANDED TO ANYONE
Interview by Armen Manvelian
AZG Armenian Daily
22/01/2008
Beginning from today, AZG will host the presidential candidates. The
next guest of our guestroom will be Artashes Geghamian and Vahan
Hovhannesian and the rest of the candidates.
A.M. Mr. Melikian 8 of the 9 candidates for the presidential elections
are more or less familiar to the large circles of the society. You
are a new person and this is your entry to the Armenian political
field. Why did you begin by the presidential elections and what kind
of new changes are you going to make in the political field of Armenia?
M. The coming presidential elections are merely no regular ones. These
elections will be a turning point from the aspect of Armenia’s fate
and the settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict. In fact the future
of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict will greatly depend on the political
course that the newly-elected president will adopt from this aspect, I
am not at all satisfied with the current approaches of our candidates.
The next issue is the home situation in Armenia, particularly the
corrupted government system in Armenia. All of the candidates talk of
the corruption, condemn that, but none of them has a realistically
elaborated system of approaches. The personalized approaches are
groundless, while the legal ones do not work, as the law-enforcement
bodies are corrupted themselves, when corruption turn into a system
of state government. The only way out is that the newly elected
president makes a strategic decision and puts a line between the past
and the future. The first issue is to annihilate all the conditions
that cause corruption, and only when we manage this, we can think
of taking legal measures against the corruption. At present, if
we begin taking punishment measures, a serious resistance will be
shaped in Armenia. Today’s authorities themselves are the hostages
of the corruption system, because, fearing of revenge, they do not
want to accept the possibility of the power shift by means of the
elections. That’s why the representatives of the governing circles
keep stating that there is only one real candidate in the coming
presidential elections, i.e Serzh Sargsyan, whose victory in the
first stage is our of question, etc.
These are the fears of the pro-governmental forces, and these fears
are not groundless. Today, we all are the hostages of the corruption
system.
A.M. They began speaking of combating corruption long ago, the
president even has advisers in this issue.
Only in our country not a single high ranked official was prosecuted
for corruption at the court. Is it possible that we will witness cases
of court investigation on corruption, if you are elected the president?
M. Already in the course of settling down the anti-corruption
issues everybody will be informed about their being punished, and I
don’t think that they will take corrupted steps. The anti-corruption
combat yielded no results is conditioned by the fact that there is no
strategic decision and there is no political will to carry out that
decision. If the decision is taken by the very corrupted system, it is
never going to fight against itself. This is a matter of world outlook,
the majority of our government members, being still influenced by the
Soviet heritage, can’t imagine their activities in the state system
otherwise. The state positions became a source of making illegal
profits, and everyone knows about this.
A.M. You made a statement, by which, to my opinion, you essentially
differ from the rest of the presidential candidates. I mean the issue
of preserving the liberated territories. What do you think about the
current stage of the negotiation processes within the framework of
the OSCE Minsk group, from this aspect? And if you become a president,
will you combine these two non-combinable issues?
M. I believe that both the current format and the agenda of the
negotiations can’t be acceptable and satisfactory for the Armenian side
first of all because the factor of the Armenian refugees isn’t taken
into account. When a state is ready to forget about the right of even
the least part of its people, its international rating falls. It can
undergo any kind of pressure. But the most important thing is that this
amnesia led us to the fact that the suggestions in the negotiations’
agenda are more in the interests of Azerbaijan. I mean, that even by
handing them some regions we will improve our relations neither with
Azerbaijan nor with Turkey. While, by means of keeping these regions,
we still remain in the region of great strategic and geopolitical
importance, we protect our rights, the rights of our compatriots,
the rights that are violated today, as half a million of people had
to leave their homes in Azerbaijan and till now this issue wasn’t put
forward by the Armenian side. While Azerbaijan has inhabited all of
the former Armenian dwelling regions, the whole Northern Artsakh. Our
policy is weak both from the viewpoint of the liberated territories,
and from that of their re-inhabiting.
A.M. So, you mean that the issue of re-inhabiting the liberated
territories will be one of the key points of your program?
M. Yes, but not in the way it used to be before. Till now, only people
inspired with patriotic ideas or very poor ones who had no source to
earn their living would go dwell there. This means that that is no
developing region, as there are no development projects implemented
there. The suggestion I make also includes certain development
prospective. These territories should be given to the Armenians from
Azerbaijan with the right of ownership. By this, the owner of the
land will be ratified. The owner, becoming NKR citizen, will link
the land with the statehood of Nagorno Karabakh and undertakes its
protection, after that he can rent that land or sell it, or cultivate
it. I believe that we can invite big agricultural firms there to
organize large-scale agricultural production, taking into account
high fruitfulness of these lands.
So, economic preconditions will be created there to ensure the
successful future for the residents of those lands. The most
important point is that Nagorno Karabakh Republic should proclaim
these territories as its property that can’t be handed to anyone. This
will be enough for the investors to be sure in the effectiveness of
their investments. By the way, Mathew Bryza keeps stating that all
of the candidates are for the agenda of these negotiations, knowing
well that I am against that and I had been against since I was NKR
Foreign Minister.
A.M. It’s no secret that quite big amounts of money are being invested
in the electoral processes. How do you evaluate your own capacity? And,
in general, who are those individuals or organizations that support
you?
M. This is a very important issue, as I am absolutely against the fact
that various NGOs make series of statements in support of this or that
candidate. If a NGO makes such kind of statements, it means it enters
the political field that means it should be at least a party. This
phenomenon is in the style of the Soviet times, or the collective
letters in the times of Stalin. I totally refuse this approach, and I
say that I deal with the citizens of Armenia. Not an organization, but
a citizen should go to vote and take a decision. All these statements
are mere attempts to influence the consciousness of the citizens,
but a citizen will go to a polling station and remain all alone with
his own decision. And if I find no way to the thought of that citizen,
to his heart and spirit, any kind of statement will be of useless.