HERITAGE PARTY AND REPUBLICANS MAY COOPERATE
Lragir.am
31-05-2007 14:26:43
The Republican Party has 70 members of parliament, the Heritage Party
has 7.
The representative of the majority Armen Ashotyan and the
representative of the minority Stepan Safaryan spelled out their
models of the Armenian foreign policy and evaluated each other’s
models on May 31 at the Hayeli Club.
Stepan Safaryan said at the moment the Armenian foreign policy
"is devoid of a scientific basis, in most cases it does not
proceed from the country’s real interests, and naturally it has
promoted the isolation of Armenia and the lack of stance on crucial
developments." Stepan Safaryan means that Armenia is left out of
regional programs and "Armenia does not have a common approach,
a clear-cut policy. We participate in TRASECA and INOGATE through
Georgia, in the capacity of an appendix." Armenian faces these
challenges, and according to the Heritage Party, the foreign policy
of Armenia should be edited, there should be more initiative, more
participating.
Armen Ashotyan disagrees that we are left out of regional programs. We
simply do not take part because Karabakh is the price. Besides,
those who say such things do not offer an alternative, the Republican
accused the opposition.
Meanwhile, the Republican Party has been in government since 1995,
and has been a majority since 1999. Why haven’t you solved the Karabakh
issue to prevent such problems, we asked Armen Ashotyan. "The question
is not solved because there are several unknowns, and only time can
solve an equation with many unknowns," he quoted Sevak.
Armen Ashotyan agreed that our foreign policy needs to be changed but
not strategically. The tactics or methods need to be changed. According
to him, the balanced, complementary policy of Armenia should
become multi-vector. "We must cooperate with all the forces and
countries. With those who can be useful and pre-empt negative impact
of others." Stepan Safaryan reminded that the foreign minister Vardan
Oskanyan had said complementary policy is not balanced.
"I represent the Republican Party, not Vardan Oskanyan," Armen
Ashotyan noted, adding that in the new government Vardan Oskanyan
will be appointed foreign minister because the president is entitled
to the foreign policy. But the government will do team work, Armen
Ashotyan thinks.
The debate revealed that the Republican Party and the Heritage Party
have a lot in common in boosting repatriation, raising salaries
and pensions.
Unready to work together in the same government, Stepan Safaryan said
they will not vote against initiatives by other forces to address these
problems. Armen Ashotyan hopes "the Heritage Party with its political
potential, which upholds shift of generations in the political sphere,
will fill in the gap of the constructive opposition."