FORMER FOREIGN MINISTER: IF ARMENIA IS DEPRIVED OF VOTE IN PACE, CRISIS IN COUNTRY WILL DEEPEN FOR EVEN MORE

Noyan Tapan

Dec 26, 2008

YEREVAN, DECEMBER 26, NOYAN TAPAN. We have rather a deep crisis and
tension after March 1 in Armenia, which not only fails to decrease,
but deepens for even more. Vardan Oskanian, the former RA Foreign
Minister, the Chairman of the Civilitas Foundation, said at the
December 26 presentation of Foundation’s first annual report under
the title Armenia-2008: Crisis and Possibility. Applying to Armen
Rustamian, a representative of the ARFD Armenian Supreme Body, the
Chairman of the RA National Assembly Committee on Foreign Relations,
he asked whether the ruling coalition realizes the formed situation
and undertakes steps. In response A. Rustamian said that, certainly,
there are elements of crisis and it was noticeable as early as before
March 1, in the process of the RA presidential elections.

V. Oskanian gave assurance that ARFD should have been in the opposition
sphere, as today our country lacks ideological opposition. "You
would have provided a bigger service by doing so. We should strive
for political sphere’s rehabilitation, and unless that sphere
rehabilitates, we cannot solve any problem," he said.

Touching upon the PACE Monitoring Committee’s report, the former
Foreign Minister said that if under conditions of economic and home
political tension Armenia is deprived of the vote in PACE, the crisis
in the country will deepen for even more. "It is unprecedented, as
no phenomenon of the kind has taken place in the whole history of
Council of Europe so far," V. Oskanian said.

In the words of Hovhannes Igitian, the Executive Director of the
EU Chamber of Commerce in Armenia, the Council of Europe demands
domestic consolidation from Armenia, as well as disclosure of the
March 1 events, political prisoners’ release, and A1+ TV company’s
return on air. According to H. Igitian, only 3 days are needed to
fulfill the last three conditions.

V. Oskanian, in his turn, said that information sphere’s normalization
and unbiassed character is not only conditioned by A1+ TV company’s
return on air. "Our TV companies should be told from above to act
according to the public demand," he said. Armen Darbinian, the
Rector of the Russian-Armenian (Slavonic) University, the former
Prime Minister, expressed an opinion that by Georgia’s example one
TV company should be provided to the opposition.