WHY DID KOCHARYAN GO?

Lragir.am
28/01/10

The head of the union of political scientists Hmayak Hovhannisyan by
the request of reporters commented on Robert Kocharyan’s visit to Iran.

Hmayak Hovhannisyan answered that he does not agree with the opinion
that this visit stands for Robert Kocharyan’s wish to return to the
active politics because in this case it is not expedient to go to Iran
and to express rough opinions about the role of the international
force centers in our region. Hovhannisyan says Iran has always had
a big and shadow role in the Armenian home political affairs.

He recalled that in 1997 when Robert Kocharyan was going to enter
in active politics, he left for France and not for Iran. He also
remembered that when Artur Baghdasaryan was the NA speaker, Iran
invited him to participate in the conference of the speakers of
parliaments of the Islamic organization countries, but Baghdasaryan
refused the invitation.

Hmayak Hovhannisyan is sure that Robert Kocharyan as an experienced
political figure, a person who has been the president of Armenia
for ten years, knows that it is not expedient to leave for Iran in
order to come back to active politics. According to Hovhannisyan,
Kocharyan’s visit shows that Armenia, realizing that the opening of
the Armenian and Turkish border may be protracted, or even stopped,
tries to promote the Armenian and Iranian relations as an attempt to
eliminate the repression in connection with the Karabakh issue.

According to him, Robert Kocharyan’s visit was a message addressed
to the West about special relations between Armenia and Iran. Hmayak
Hovhannisyan recalled that Robert Kocharyan has been the responsible
person for the Karabakh defense, as well as the first president of
Karabakh, and if he was not accepted in Iran as an Armenia official,
he was surely accepted as a Karabakh official.