LIFE IS NOT ONLY OPPOSITION-RULING POWER STRUGGLE
Naira Khachatryan

Hayots Ashkhar Daily
02 Oct 2008
Armenia

Leader of the United Labor Party Gurgen Arsenyan was the guest of
"Urbat" club yesterday.

Most of the questions were linked with the activity of the NA temporary
committee investigating March 1-2 developments. It turned out that G.

Arsenyan has certain questions the answers to which he hasn’t yet
received.

"My questions were linked with the events following the morning
developments. The police informed us about the instructions they got
after the morning developments. These instructions gave ground to
certain questions.

According to the version received from the police beginning from
10.00 a.m. the chief police officers have realized mobilization
of forces. So, a question arises here, "Why did they take that
decision?" in case when they received information regarding people’s
accumulation only at 11.00 a.m.

This is my personal standpoint, which hasn’t yet been discussed in
the session of the committee.

He said clear inter-party conflicts form the bases of the change
of the NA Speaker: "RPA is still a ruling party and they shoulder
responsibility.

Any party that shoulders certain responsibility has the right to
decide whom to appoint in this or that position. It is their internal
problem and the hullabaloo and the responses don’t coincide with the
forma t of what happened."

As regards the internal political situation, G. Arsenyan believes all
the issues can be solved by a dialogue: "A situation has been created,
where the citizens of Armenia who are divided into pro-oppositional
and pro-governmental don’t listen to one another. The issue of a
dialogue has ripened. We must find the key. Even if it has negative
results. In this question I would like to address the ruling power
because their resources are bigger.

On the other hand some try to introduce the situation created in
the country as black and white. It is very boring because life is
going on and it has different colors. Millions of people live in our
country and we shouldn’t ignore them, saying "either this side or
that side"…"if we come to power everything will be ok"…etc."

The attitude of the speaker towards the visit of the Turkish president
to Armenia is positive: "Any event that gives possibility to mitigate
the tension between Armenian-Turkish relations and to raise the
degree of cooperation is welcomed. I also welcome the initiative of
the country’s President to bring the process of the settlement of
Karabakh conflict to a productive stage. I welcome him on behalf of
the United Labor Party and on my behalf, personally.

The recent Russian-Georgian developments demonstrated the necessity
of establishing communication, economic and20political relations
with Turkey, because our economy could be paralyzed, had the Georgian
conflict lasted 10 more days. Based on Armenia’s vital interests we
must firstly settle our relations with Turkey."