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`YEREVAN MAYOR IGNORES PRIME MINISTER’S DECISION’
[04:09 pm] 07 February, 2008
more images `Go ahead Armenia, starving Armenia’,
the victims of state needs mocked at the presidential
candidate Serge Sargsyan’s slogan. They gathered in
front of the Government building to meet the Prime
Minister for the last time. Policemen did not allow
the gathered citizens approach the Government building
and tired to make them leave the Square. `It is cold,
go home, you will get cold, you will not solve your
problems standing here and crying’, urged the
policemen.
`We will not leave until we meet the Prime Minister’,
responded the demonstrators. Some officials arrived
from the Municipality, among them Deputy Mayor Kamo
Areyan, and offered the demonstrators to go to the
Municipality and solve the problems there.
The residents of Dalma Gardens, North Avenue,
Koghbatsi and Tigran Mets streets did not want to
leave without getting any response from the Government
and stood in front of the Government for 2 hours. They
wanted to meet only the Prime Minister, since `the
Mayor does not want to solve our problems’. `The Prime
Minister ordered the Mayor to settle our problems.
Some times later the Mayor told us: `I will not
provide you with apartments. Turn to the one who has
promised it to you”.
`Does it mean that the Mayor ignores the Prime
Minister’s decision? The Mayor tells the Prime
Minister as if he does his best to settle our
problems’, said Vachagan Hakobyan, Chairman of the
`Protection of Property Rights’ NGO. The demonstrators
noted that they did not trust anyone, since `they have
been deceiving us for 4 years’.
Vachagan Hakobyan told `A1+’ that they negotiated with
the oppositional presidential candidates Levon
Ter-Petrosyan, Arthur Baghdasaryan and Vazgen
Manukyan. `If they do not solve our problems by the
end of the week, we will join the opposition
candidates and will fight against the authorities’,
said Vachagan Hakobyan, noting that the authorities
tried to detain him. `If something happens to me, the
authorities and the police will be responsible for
it’.
Serge Sargsyan did not receive the demonstrators since
he was in the region of Lori. The participants of the
protest action left the Square warning that if the
Prime Minister did not meet them during the upcoming
days, they would join the opposition parties.