On February 14 a summit was organized in Yerevan called “Javakhk on the threshold of the challenges of the 21st century”, which was initiated by the “Nikol Aghbalyan” students’ union, which is a part of the Revolutionary Federation and accordingly the coalition. This time the issue of declaring Javakhk independent was raised again.
Even more, they have made an announcement which says that the citizens of Javakhk have a right to demand freedom and this demand will give them a chance to live in freedom and speak in their own language. It is also interesting that the head of AIM party Paruyr Hairikyan made an announcement on March 3, where he said that we should give Armenian citizenship to citizens of Javakhk. “We petition the foreign affairs ministry to leave all the existing problems aside as well as jurisprudence and give Armenian citizenship to all citizens of Javakhk who may apply for it”, said Mr. Hairikyan. Why do they need to discuss the issue? What is the purpose and will those discussions be beneficial for citizens of Javakhk? “We also worry about the latest incidents too. Recently, both the press and some officials made such announcements without any serious approach, creating an environment of distrust between Georgia and Armenia and this is bad for Javakhk citizens”, said the head of “Strong Armenia” political party Vardan Vardapetyan yesterday, who says that their main problem now is to solve the existing problems with Javakhk. He says that these announcements may have political backgrounds, but Mr. Vardapetyan wants to remind everyone that a lot of grant programs are being implemented in Javakhk, one of which gives 100 million dollars to Javakhk in the framework of the “millennium challenges” program. According to him, perhaps with these announcements some powers are trying to use that money for their own purposes by hindering the development of Javakhk and creating an atmosphere of enmity there, which is bad for Javakhk citizens. According to Mr. Vardapetyan their party has always acted against such announcements that are bad for people. So what is our problem? Asked Mr. Vardapetyan and tried to answer to his own question: “We are trying to explain the problem in the following way: create good conditions so the citizens of Javakhk live in good conditions in the territory of Georgia and feel like they have control of Javakhk in the 21st century”, says Mr. Vardapetyan and adds that this is the reason why the Georgian authorities concentrated their security powers in Javakh, which gave way to many problems. According to Mr. Vardapetyan all these things create an environment of distrust, as a result of which a lot of governmental programs to be implemented by the both parties are pending. “I mean that these announcements undermine the political, social and economical programs that have been undertaken to develop in Javakhk”, says Mr. Vardapetyan and adds that now we don’t have a problem to take Javakhk. According to him if these programs are implemented, there will be no problems any more. Mr. Vardapetyan petitions all organizations and politicians not to make such baseless announcements, which according to him are very bad for Armenians living in Javakhk. “And when these problems are not solved of course they can use this for their own purposes, which is good for some third countries”, says Mr. Vardapetyan. He also says that these announcements can also be explained as political attempts to use the factor of Javakhk for their own political purposes in this pre-election year. He thinks that this is normal but says that this must not go against the interests of Armenians living in Javakhk. “So what kind of interests do the Armenians that live in Javakhk have? Do those people that make such announcements at least imagine what kind of interests they have?” asks Mr. Vardapetyan. According to him their party and “Javakhk” nationalistic union have started organizing different discussions on the existing problems connected with Javakhk and try to make suggestions how to solve those problems. They have already organized a discussion dedicated to the educational field in Javakhk. They are also going to hold discussions on different fields in the coming future. “We petition Mass Media to help us with this and broadcast the discussions in a duly manner so we can explain the situation both to public and the authorities as it is. We will bring concrete examples, for instance what we have to do to keep the schools”, says Mr. Vardapetyan. Anyway, as for the before mentioned announcements, Mr. Vardapetyan says that each kind of announcement makes the situation in Javakhk worse. “If they can’t help they shouldn’t do anything. Let’s try to reconstruct a school there, reconstruct a road, etc… Instead of that let’s try to solve concrete problems”, says the head of “Strong Armenia”.