DASHNAK LEADER GIVES AZERIS A LESSON IN HISTORY, REITERATES OPPOSITION TO ARMENIAN-TURKEY PROTOCOLS
By Georg Khachaturyan

hnak_leader_gives_lesson_in_history
14.12.09 | 18:23

Hovhannisyan discards Azerbaijan’s war rhetoric as "not serious".

The leader of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation’s faction in
parliament, Vahan Hovhannisyan, discards as "not serious" the bellicose
rhetoric routinely heard from Azerbaijan’s military top brass.

The latest such statement (of several surfacing since September 1)
was made on Saturday by Azerbaijan’s defense minister Safar Abiyev,
who – ignoring OSCE persuasion against such rhetoric – again spoke
about the possibility of resolving the Karabakh conflict through
the use of force. "If negotiations produce no result, a war with
Armenia is inevitable," the Azeri minister said bluntly, as reported
by Azerbaijani media.

Armenia and Azerbaijan continue their internationally mediated talks
and are said to be close to agreement on basic principles of settling
the longstanding conflict.

Several international documents signed by Yerevan and Baku, in
particular the November 2008 Moscow declaration of the two countries’
presidents co-sponsored by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and the
latest statement on Karabakh by the Foreign Ministers of the OSCE
member states adopted in Athens on December 2, call on the parties to
the Karabakh conflict to abstain from the use of force or even threats
of the use of force in the process of settling the protracted dispute.

Commenting at ArmeniaNow’s request on the statement by the Azerbaijani
minister, Hovhannisiayn, who headed the Armenian parliament’s standing
committee on defense, national security and internal affairs in
1999-2003, said: "I can reply to Abiyev using the words of Spartan King
Leonidas (V century BC), who retorted to Persian King Xerxes’s demand
of surrender by saying: ‘Come and get it’." (The Greeks eventually
proved victorious).

At a press conference on Monday, Hovhannisyan also spoke about steps
that ARF Dashnaktsutyun is going to take to attempt preventing the
ratification of fence-mending agreements with Turkey. (Yerevan and
Ankara signed protocols on establishing diplomatic ties and developing
bilateral relations in Zurich, Switzerland, on October 10 this year.

The agreements need ratification in the parliaments of both Armenia
and Turkey to enter the stage of implementation.)

Hovhannisyan said that the party was going to stage numerous actions
before and on January 12, the day when the Constitutional Court of
Armenia is set to consider the constitutionality of the agreements.

"I can assure you, it will be very restless in the country during
those days," the parliamentarian warned, without elaborating.