Armenian parliament opposition and ruling majority divided over their
assessments of president Serzh Sargsyan’s two-year term in office

YEREVAN, April 9. /ARKA/. Armenian parliament members from the
opposition and the ruling majority were divided today in their
assessments of the first two years of president Serzh Sargsyan’s rule.
President Serzh Sargsyan was inaugurated two years ago on April 9.

Stepan Safarian, head of the parliamentary faction of the Zharangutyun
(Heritage) party, said Sargsyan’s two-year presidency brought no
positive changes. `I did not pin hopes on his presidency, never
supported him and therefore I am not frustrated by his failure to
fulfill his promises,’ he said.

Another member of the faction, Armen Martirosian, said nothing was
done to reform the country’s judicial system, no economic reforms were
implemented and the authorities failed also to find and punish the
people responsible for 2008 March 1-2 bloody events in Yerevan.
‘
Artsvik Minasian from the Armenian Revolutionary
Federation/Dashnaktsutyun, said two years of Sargsyan’s presidency
have only raised tension in the country’s foreign policy leading to a
division between Armenia proper and its vast Diaspora because of the
process he initiated in a bid to improve relations with Turkey.

However, Heghine Bisharian from the Orinats Yerkir (Country of Law)
party, a member of the ruling coalition, disagreed with these
assessments arguing that Sargsyan succeeded in mitigating domestic
political tension and achieved serious progress in foreign policy.
Naira Zohrabian from another coalition member party, Prosperous
Armenia ,underlined the significance of the Armenian-Turkish process
and progress in the efforts to settle the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

Galust Sahakian, a deputy chairman of Serzh Sargsyan’s Republican
Party, said Sargsyan made the international community look deeper into
Armenian problems and realize them. -0-