It is obvious that Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev is in a hurry. Ishkhan Saghatelyan, an opposition MP and a member of the Supreme Body of the opposition Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) Dashnaktsutyun Party of Armenia, told Armenian NEWS.am about this—and commenting on Saturday’s meeting between the FMs of Armenia and Azerbaijan in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia.
"In general, the Turkish-Azerbaijani tandem is in a hurry, they are trying to turn the de facto advantage they gained in the [44-day Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh)] war [in the fall of 2020] into de jure, to document their victory because they realize that when they lose their partner in Armenia [i.e., PM Nikol Pashinyan], they will not be able to speak to Armenia in that language, and therefore all these moves and the actions are already within that framework," Saghatelyan added.
Reflecting on the process of stripping the Armenian opposition of its parliamentary mandates, the opposition lawmaker said that neither the ruling power brought them to the parliament, nor can the ruling power strip them of their parliamentary mandates.
"We do not take into account their opinion in our actions, we have worded our position very clearly, we will return to the parliament solely with our agenda, we have worded it, and we have announced it many times; I rule out in all other cases. They can't deal with us with threats, stripping us of the [parliamentary] mandate, I don't know with what [else]. We don't take [it] seriously, as that is not the agenda and challenge of our country," he said.
According to Saghatelyan, the fact that the incumbent Armenian authorities are looking for “heart-throbbing” ways to strip the opposition of its parliamentary mandate is an answer to all those who think that they will do more damage to the authorities by giving up their parliamentary seats.
"At this moment, I believe it is completely correct and justified not to give up the [parliamentary] mandates" Ishkhan Saghatelyan concluded.