OPPOSITION PARTY WANTS REFERENDUM ON TURKISH-ARMENIAN DEAL
Emil Danielyan, Irina Hovannisian
Armenialiberty.org
http://www.azatuty un.am/content/article/1814226.html
Sept 3 2009
Armenia — Raffi Hovannisian, the leader of the opposition Zharangutyun
(Heritage) party.
A major Armenian opposition party on Thursday rejected as sellout the
newly publicized agreements between Armenia and Turkey and demanded
a nationwide referendum on them.
In a written statement, the Zharangutyun (Heritage) party brushed aside
government assurances that the two draft protocols unveiled by Ankara
and Yerevan this week provide for an unconditional normalization of
Turkish-Armenian relations. It argued that Armenia has explicitly
recognized its existing border with Turkey and accepted a Turkish
proposal to jointly study the massacres of Armenians in the Ottoman
Empire.
The statement charged that the study would undermine Armenian
efforts at broader international recognition of the mass killings
as genocide. Echoing statements by other government critics, it
also claimed that as part of the Western-backed deal with the Turks
President Serzh Sarkisian agreed to make more concessions to Azerbaijan
in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
"This does not stem from the national interests of the Republic of
Armenia," Armen Martirosian, the leader of Zharangutyun’s parliamentary
faction, told RFE/RL. "Instead, it stems from Turkey’s interests. In
essence, Turkey has managed to include all the preconditions, which
it has had right from the beginning, in the protocols."
The Zharangutyun statement said that the party will soon start
collecting signatures in the National Assembly in support of its
referendum demand. Under Armenian law, Zharangutyun needs the backing
of at least two-thirds of the assembly members to force such a vote. It
holds only seven seats in the 131-member parliament dominated by
President Serzh Sarkisian’s supporters.
The statement warned that in case of the failure of the signature
collection the party led by former Foreign Minister Raffi Hovannisian
will stage anti-government protests and join forces with other
political parties opposed to Sarkisian’s Turkish policy. One of those
parties, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun),
has also strongly condemned the Turkish-Armenian agreements.
Dashnaktsutyun holds 16 parliament seats and was a member of
Sarkisian’s governing coalition until recently. Martirosian did
not rule out the possibility of Zharangutyun’s close cooperation
with Dashnaktsutyun on one of the most sensitive issues in Armenian
politics.
The country’s largest opposition force, the Armenian National Congress
(HAK), has responded more positively to the latest developments in
the more than yearlong Turkish-Armenian negotiations. In a statement
issued on Tuesday, the HAK said the disclosed draft protocols mark
"substantial progress" towards Turkish-Armenian reconciliation. It
at the same time denounced the planned creation of a Turkish-Armenian
body tasked with examining the World War One-era massacres.
The HAK’s largely positive official reaction to the deal, which
apparently reflects the views of its top leader Levon Ter-Petrosian,
contrasted with sharp criticism of the government voiced by some top
representatives of the alliance uniting about two dozen opposition
groups. One of them, the Social Democratic Hnchakian Party, on Thursday
disavowed the HAK statement and effectively sided with Zharangutyun
and Dashnaktsutyun on the matter.