A couple of weeks ago, some newspaper editions published the Armenian section of the U.S. State Department’s annual report on the international strategies for the fight against drugs. In that report, it was stated that “Armenian high-deputy officials haven’t been caught for selling illegal drugs”.
This caused some people to make different interpretations. According to some, the U.S. State Department is simply trying to enforce its method of solving the Karabagh conflict and is sending a “message” to the Armenian authorities. They hint that if Armenia tries to prolong the conflict resolution, then the State Department will “reveal” the authorities’ illegal sale of drugs. Some people are also of the opinion that those announcements are just nonsense and that Armenian authorities don’t have anything to do with that.
However, Armenian authorities still haven’t spoken out about this announcement and citizens are still expressing their opinions.
“168 Hours” questioned one of the MPs as to why the authorities hadn’t reacted to this yet, or if they doubt that the sentence has been translated correctly, then why they don’t appeal to the Foreign Ministry of Affairs to clear things up. We also asked leader of the “Republican” political faction Galust Sahakyan why the Republican Party, which holds many positions at the National Assembly, is not interested in the correct translation of the report and can we predict that they agree with the allegations by the State Department. First of all, Galust Sahakyan said that he has doubts about the correct translation and claims that the U.S. couldn’t accuse Armenian authorities of something that serious. Then he said that the issue “has nothing to do” with Armenian authorities.
“What do Armenian authorities have to do with drugs? Even if that is true, I must say that Armenian and American environments differ from one another. Whereas something like that may cause serious problems in America, here in Armenia nobody really pays attention to that. Not one member of the parliament is involved in the illegal sale of drugs,” said Galust Sahakyan.
The Republican faction leader is certain that these announcements simply have to do with politics and the aim is to tie everything with politics. But since Galust Sahakyan is one of the very few “lucky” MPs who has contacts with the political elite of Armenia, he assures that not one state official, including a high-deputy official, is involved in the illegal sale of drugs.
“I know all the authority figures and I have never suspected any one of them. Besides, Armenia differs in its views about drugs, compared to European countries and even the U.S. Of course, drugs are also sold in Armenia, but God forbid that it reaches the level of America,” said Galust Sahakyan.
As for MP of the “National Unity” political faction Gagik Kostandyan, he’s certain that the U.S. State Department’s report can simply be referred to a piece of information.
“The U.S. State Department gave us a piece of information. Don’t think that the investigative groups are not checking up on the facts, if of course, they hadn’t done that beforehand. I think that both the investigators and the KGB has to solve any issues,” said Gagik Kostandyan and assured that their political party will also follow up on the sequence of events.
A National Assembly-government question and answer session followed and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Armenia Vartan Oskanyan was also participating (the MPs were trying to figure out when was the last time that Oskanyan appeared at the National Assembly). During the session, Republican MP Ararat Malkhasyan asked members of the parliament if there was anyone involved in the drug business who haven’t been caught, or is the U.S. Department simply suspecting them. It turned out that not one parliament member, except leader of “New Times” political party Aram Karapetyan, had asked Oskanyan to clear things up or asked about the translation.
For some reason, Vartan Oskanyan made a reference to the report in English and said:
“When you write “no” in the beginning of an English sentence and when you take it out, people get mixed up and come up with different interpretations. The report says totally the opposite of what we are thinking. We are all familiar with the report and the allegations have nothing to do with the sentence. It’s absurd to think that any Armenian authority figure has actually been involved in the illegal sale of drugs.”
As to how many MPs understood what Vartan Oskanyan said after his reference in English and how that part of the annual report was written, nobody knows for sure. In any case, the MPs left the National Assembly yesterday feeling happy that they had understood what the word “no” means and remembered that they had learned that word from movies. One of the MPs expressed his joy as he translated the “no” into Armenian. When we asked him “no” to what, the MP didn’t quite understand what we meant and said: “Weren’t you in the hall? Didn’t you hear what Oskanyan said?”