Public order is more important than dialogue – David Harutyunyan

13:04 – 13.08.11

The goals of the dialogue between Armenia’s opposition and ruling
coalition cannot be as important as to lead to the country’s failure
of keeping public order, a coalition representative as said.

In an interview with the Armenian daily Aravot, David Harutyunyan, the
head of the delegation representing the ruling coalition in the
dialogue, said that there can be no dialogue just for the sake of
dialogue.

Asked how he would react, should the Armenian National Congress (or
HAK) withdraw from the dialogue, especially against the backdrop of
the recent arrest of opposition activists, Harutyunyan said: `There
cannot be dialogue for the sake of dialogue.’

`Of course the dialogue pursues very important goals – creating a
decent atmosphere of tolerance, for the country’s progress,
development, a decent atmosphere in regular elections, in the
post-election period,’ Harutyunyan added.

`But no matter how important those goals are, they cannot be
considered as important as to lead the country to a failure of
preserving public order,’ explained he.

According to Harutyunyan, if the opposition uses the arrest of its
young activists as a pretext to withdraw from the dialogue, it will
mean we were not in fact mature enough for this dialogue.

`That will mean that we have failed to create the atmosphere when we
could talk to each other in a civilized way. That is very bad as at
some point there should be a dialogue in the country,’ said David
Harutyunyan.

Tert.am