WE HAVE A SUPREME GOAL
Lilit Poghosyan
Hayots Ashkhar Daily
21 Oct 2008
Armenia
To Achieve The Pro-Armenian Settlement Of The Conflict
Does Ter-Petrosyan really intend not to "pressurize" Armenian
authorities in this "fatal" moment for the country, not to make it
vulnerable towards the external impacts? Is this the reason why he
announced during his last meeting about his intention to freeze the
demonstration-based activeness of the opposition or it was pretence
to save his face?
MP, RPA Press Secretary Edward Sharmazanov answers our questions.
"It is not a secret that the demonstration-based activeness was
extinguishing and society is well aware of this fact. I have
already said and I must repeat that the times of demagogy is over
and the opposition would rather shift their struggle from the
demonstration-based to the constructive field.
As regards the announcements made by Ter-Petrosyan naturally I don’t
agree to his assessments and commentaries. We, the Republican Party,
coalition, and me personally, as an MP, have already expressed our
stance regarding Karabakh and by the way from the high tribune of
the Parliament.
And I don’t see any reason for anxiety. Armenia will never agree to
any type of concession, which contradicts our national interests.
But each political force decides its course of action on its own – to
hold meeting s or to freeze their demonstration-based activeness, for
unknown reasons. It is the monopoly of that particular political force.
It is another issue that each political force, be it pro-oppositional
or pro-governmental, must be guided by the principle of the supremacy
of the national interests and if the first President is sincere in
his intentions, we can only welcome his action. If not, if he simply
speculates, national state interests, then I must say that I don’t
consider it moral."
"In your view is Levon Ter-Petrosyan sincere or he simply maneuvers?"
"I don’t want to give assessments. As you know the party, the coalition
has its own project, and by the leadership of the President we are
implementing this project. We and me personally, as a member of RPA
faction, meet with the voters every Saturday-Sunday. We visit the
regions and we are well aware of the people’s problems. Which means
the ruling power is not detached from the people.
For the first time in our reality the President addressed the people
from the tribune of the National Assembly and not only did he speak
about our achievements but also the negative phenomena that exist
among society and why not the pyramid of the ruling power. Thus
the President stated over again that he is determined to put into
practice his pre-election program and that his words don’t differ
from his deeds. It is the problem of the opposition whether or not
they will hold demonstrations and what type of announcements they
will make regarding Karabakh issue.
The President clearly introduced his goals from the UN tribune and
in my view Armenia’s stance towards the settlement of Karabakh issue
is not a secret for anyone. Which is – the settlement of the issue
must be based on the principle of supremacy of nations’ right to
self-determination.
Secondly – the stance of the President is based not only on his own
project or that of the Republican Party, but it is clearly enshrined
in Armenia’s national strategy program.
We have a supreme goal to do our best to achieve the pro-Armenian
settlement of the conflict. Of course better if it happens in the
nearest future, but we never intend to take swift actions, because
it can lead to anti-Armenian settlement of the issue.
No one is as interested in the pro-Armenian settlement of the conflict
as Serge Sargsyan, someone who unlike others hasn’t changed his
stance towards the settlement of Karabakh conflict. He has voiced
this stance in 1993 and 1998 opposing Vazgen Sargsyan and Robert
Kocharyan who approved the version of the phazal settlement of the
conflict proposed by Ter-Petrosyan.