NATIONAL UNANIMITY IS REQUIRED
Armen Tsatouryan
Hayots Ashkhar Daily
21 Nov 08
Armenia
For forming a united front over the Karabakh issue
Yesterday’s discussions over the Karabakh issue (held in the Sports
and Cultural Center) received contradictory assessments by the native
political forces.
Following the instructions of L. Ter-Petrosyan, the leaders of the
parties which have joined the Armenian National Congress refrained
from participating in the discussion, although they hadn’t previously
concealed their desire for meeting with President S. Sargsyan.
This comes to prove that the so-called founding chairman of the
Congress did his "black deed", i.e. he ruined our attempts of reaching
a consensus or agreement over the Karabakh issue. No matter how much
we may persist in our statements that Karabakh does not belong to any
individual, the dissentient and dangerous policy of using the current
difficulties of Karabakh with internal political considerations has
already taken its course.
The divergent views expressed by different political forces with
regard to yesterday’s discussions testify to one thing only: those
who consider Nagorno Karabakh a tool rather than a goal do not need
to listen to the President, whereas those who are concerned by the
fate of Artsakh did take part in the meeting. And because the latter
were more in number, the process follows its right cou rse.
It’s not accidental that yesterday’s meeting was attended not only
by the representatives of all the parliamentary factions, including
"Heritage", but also the leaders of other pro-opposition forces
such as the National Democratic Union (Vazgen Manoukyan), National
Self-Determination Union (Paruyr Hayrikyan) and National Unity
(Artashes Geghamyan) etc.
Thus, the political parties which are concerned by the fate of Artsakh
but differ from one another on internal political issues created a
broad format in which all the representatives are unanimous at least
in three issues.
First: The attempts of playing the role of a "hero" or "traitor" are
cheap political speculations because we all are, as a matter of fact,
interested in the fair solution of the problem.
Second: the signature or rejection of any document concerning
Karabakh should be the expression of the will of the state and the
people vs. the authorities and the opposition because in both cases
it will be necessary to resist the possible threats and challenges
on a united front.
Third: Armenia’s will of being unanimous in counterbalancing the
political consensus of Azerbaijan is the pledge of our country’s firm
positions on the Karabakh issue. So, if the unity has been partially
disrupted as a result of L. Ter-Petrosyan’s recent steps, it is
necessary to think about the formation of some centre of gravity"
consisting of national patriotic forces. Such center will make a
clear-cut distinction between the tactical steps of the Armenian
diplomacy and the strategically impermissible concessions. And it
will support its attitude under any circumstances.
Such "center of gravity" will become a tool for keeping the steps
of the authorities under control, as well as a counterbalance to
the opposition’s attempts of speculating the Karabakh issue with
internal political considerations, splitting the country and making
its defeat inevitable.
It’s known to us that an expression of such agreement was the internal
political format (elaborated in 1992 and approved by the decision of
the Supreme council) prohibiting L. Ter-Petrosyan and his co-thinkers
to sign any treaty in which Nagorno Karabakh was referred to as part
of Azerbaijan.
In case of the existence of such format, L. Ter-Petrosyan, the
alleged "liberator of Artsakh", and the Armenian National Congress
will be pushed to the corner and follow the process of the formation
of national consent from a distance.
Thus the discussions devoted to the Karabakh issue put an end to the
bi-polar confrontation following the 2008 presidential elections and
marked the beginning of the process of searching for a united formula
that will help Armenia overcome the existing challenges.