Armenia head threatens action as opposition rallies
Sat Feb 23, 2008 12:21pm EST
By Margarita Antidze

YEREVAN, Feb 23 (Reuters) – Armenia’s president won the support of top
security and army chiefs on Saturday for tough action against
opposition supporters protesting this week’s election, which they say
was rigged.

Crowds of opposition supporters gathered for a fourth straight day in
the capital’s central Freedom Square, demanding authorities annul the
results of the Feb. 19 presidential election won by Prime Minister
Serzh Sarksyan.

Sarksyan, who is 53 and is an ally of incumbent President Robert
Kocharyan, won nearly 53 percent of the vote compared with 21.5 percent
for his nearest rival, former President Levon Ter-Petrosyan, according
to official results.

Ter-Petrosyan’s supporters say the election was rigged and charge
ballot stuffing and intimidation.

Saturday’s rally in the Caucasus mountains country, which lasted for
about five hours and was attended by around 35,000 people, was the
largest opposition protest since the election.

"Robert Kocharyan characterised the events taking place in Armenia as
an attempt to seize power by illegal means," the presidential press
service said in a statement issued after Kocharyan’s meeting with top
police officers.

"Our actions will be resolute and tough, they will be directed towards
safeguarding stability and the country’s constitutional order," the
statement quoted Kocharyan as saying.

Kocharyan then met the chiefs of the army and national security
service. "The nation’s stability should in no case become a bargaining
chip," he told senior security officials.

Ter-Petrosyan shrugged off the threats.

"Our struggle will continue as before, by lawful means," he told
Reuters. "Our rallies will go on, just as well as marches and
picketing," he added.

"They (the authorities) themselves are the ones who violated the
country’s constitutional order."

"Levon is the president!" chanted the rally. "Victory!" and "We will
fight till the end", shouted the protesters.

An opposition tent camp will continue its night vigil in central
Yerevan.

Armenia, an ancient Christian nation of 3.2 million, lies in a region
that is emerging as a key route for pumping Caspian Sea oil and gas to
world markets, though Armenia has no pipelines of its own.

Western election monitors said the ballot was broadly in line with the
country’s international commitments but further improvements were
necessary.

Kocharyan and Sarksyan are both natives of Nagorno-Karabakh, a region
over which Armenia and neighbouring Azerbaijan fought a war in the
1990s. Some analysts say that still-unresolved conflict could flare
again into violence.

Turkey closed its border with Armenia and froze diplomatic relations in
solidarity with Turkic-speaking Azerbaijan.

Relations with Ankara are also complicated by the massacre of Armenians
by Ottoman Turks during World War One, viewed by Yerevan as genocide, a
charge Turkey strongly denies.

Turkey congratulated Sarksyan on his election win and said it hoped for
better ties with the Christain neighbour. (Additional reporting by
Hasmik Lazarian) (Writing by Dmitry Solovyov; Editing by Mary Gabriel)