– Mr. Manoyan, what steps will the ARF undertake to oppose the Turkish-Armenian protocols? Will there be any change in your tactics? Do you see any chance that the protocols will not be ratified?
– I see such a prospect and that is the reason why we work in that direction. And our main tactics will be to convince our colleagues at the NA to oppose the ratification of the protocols. This method is not the only way to oppose the process but it doesn’t mean that we are relying only on the other opportunities. And the other options are the following: Turkey will not ratify or will ratify with so many conditions, which will not be acceptable for Armenia. Or maybe Turkey will prolong the process quite long and therefore Armenia will end up refusing the process. But the realistic opportunity that we have is to convince the MPs that it is wrong to ratify the protocols.
– Don’t you think that it is naive to think that the members of the republican or the Prosperous Armenia factions will vote against the government? Isn’t your initiative subject to failure right at the beginning?
– This NA confirmed and showed that there were drafts brought up by the coalition and many of the members of the majority denied the given draft. I mean certain tax reforms, which were unacceptable for businessmen MPs. And finally they are all Armenians and we should be able to explain to them that this is a very responsible issue and it affects all of us. It means that if some bill touches their personal interest they oppose it. With the pressure from the society we should try to make them understand that the ratification will personally harm them as well. And if in that parliament a voting takes place these people must already feel responsible.
– Can only the ARF and the Heritage reach this goal? Will there be public pressure without cooperation with the ANC?
– In the parliament only the ARF and the Heritage are against the ratification but there are also many non-parliamentary forces and we hope that the next steps will create the opportunity to unite these forces and join this movement. That way the society will be able to deliver its message to the MPs and the MPs will finally figure out what’s right and what’s wrong for the public demand. We don’t have the need to persuade everyone. A little more than the half is enough. As of the ANC, then in this regard the Congress in this regard is closer to the approach of the government. Of course, in the ANC there are certain parties even people, who are against the ratification of these protocols but the ANC doesn’t express this standpoint as a collective force. Therefore, cooperation with them is not realistic.
– In that case, don’t you think that without the involvement of the ANC this pressure will not be enough to convince the MPs of the opposite?
– But if the ANC doesn’t share our viewpoint what can we do? How can you imagine the ANC coming over and pressuring on the government if it doesn’t share this attitude? And if they don’t share this opinion there is nothing we can do. It’s not all about them.
– In the media recently there is a lot of circulation on the new formulation – ARF-HRAK-Henchak. They are claiming that these three parties are trying to create a little opposition and not actual opposition.
– This is an opinion of an uninformed person. The HRAK that we recently met with it is the same party, against which the government has created another HRAK – the Armenakan HRAK. It is obvious that only the second HRAK will be cooperating with the government. The first HRAK has always opposed the attempts of normalizing relations with Turkey and there are no grounds to assume that they are still linked to the government.
As of the Henchak party they were one of the parties of the Congress and they were against the normalization of relations right on the first day. So we think that they don’t have any links with the government either.
– I mean that the governing is trying to reach something by trying to replace the chairwoman of the Henchak party Lyudmilla Sargsyan.
– I don’t understand what the government is attempting to do. The members of the ANC are speaking that the ARF is communicating with certain members of the Congress. But what is the ANC? One party or a coalition of parties? I don’t understand this. Does this mean that the parties included in the ANC have lost their subjective way of thinking and independence? I believe they haven’t yet. In that case, why do they feel offended when we are trying to cooperate with certain parties of the ANC, which have a similar way of thinking just like us? There is nothing wrong with that. The ANC is not a single party and we are not seeking separate wings within the party. The Henchak party doesn’t consent with the foreign policy of the ANC and is totally against the whole process of normalizing relations with Turkey. The ANC thinks that in Armenia there is only the ANC and the government and anything else is either the ANC or the government. It’s not like that. We need to be more realistic and see that in the ANC there are forces, which don’t share the same standpoints as the ANC. And it doesn’t mean that they are the envoys of the government.