Finally yesterday RA President Serzh Sargsyan responded to the suggestion of the ANC on starting a dialog. But Sargsyan’s statement created more questions than answers.
And most importantly from the statement it wasn’t clear whether Sargsyan was giving a positive or a negative response to the ANC. First Sargsyan mentioned that for the forces, which are concerned with the problems of our people and development of our state, the only logical and acceptable way to move forward and find solutions to the existing difficulties is dialogue and discussions. All other methods can be dangerous, full of inevitable losses. We have been speaking about it constantly and will not recoil from repeating it again and again. After the Presidential elections in 2008, my first public statement was a call for cooperation directed to all political forces and non-governmental groups. And ever since, the working style of the authorities remains unchanged. He also added that the initiators if the dialog with the opposition are the authorities. But it is not clear whether Sargsyan admitted the suggestion of the Congress. It seems yes because in his statement he emphasized, “If among the numerous problems facing our people and our country the ANC is interested exclusively in the elections, the Speaker of the National Assembly is ready to personally receive the representatives of that political body and hear them out. If, however, there are suggestions aimed at the rise of our economy and solution of the social problems existing in the country, then the Prime Minster personally will receive them and discuss these issues. If there are issues which command intervention by the President, the Head of the Presidential Staff will receive them and discuss all issues.” Let us remember that the ANC has numerously announced that the main prerequisite of the dialog with the government is the by-elections. Does this mean that Sargsyan is willing to discuss the theme of by-elections with the opposition? Does he also think that the only way out of the tough social-economic situation and the foreign challenges is the conduct of extraordinary elections? The RPA’s parliamentary leader, Galust Sahakyan, earlier said that the ruling party and its two junior coalition parties are ready to hear ANC demands for fresh elections. But he said they will remain adamant in rejecting those demands. Sahakyan said the Sargsyan administration would like to discuss with the ANC the proper conduct of regular parliamentary and presidential elections due in 2012 and 2013 respectively. Asked about the dialogue format, the Sahakyan said, “If they call me one day and say ‘Mr. Sahakyan, we want to meet with your parliamentary faction,’ no problem, we’ll meet. If they say they have issues to discuss with the government, the prime minister will receive them.” The next uncertainty relates to the establishment of the delegation of negotiators. After releasing the political prisoners via the amnesty on June 2 the opposition built a 5-member delegation to negotiate with the government. On these days the political circles were discussing who would be the potential negotiators from the opposition. Would these be representatives from the coalition parties or the loyalists of Serzh Sargsyan? But later on the government stated that they didn’t have any intention to create delegations. In this regard, Galust Sahakyan even said that they don’t wish to play “hide and seek.” “If instead of negotiations, which are unacceptable, the Armenian National Congress is genuinely ready to continue the dialogue on the outline of the country’s development, essential issues of the country’s foreign and internal policies and desires to do so through the specially designated individuals, representatives of the ruling coalition parties can sit down at the negotiation table with them,” read the President’s statement. Does this mean that a delegation should be formed? In the beginning Sargsyan said that the opposition may apply to Tigran Sargsyan, Hovik Abrahamyan and Karen Karapetyan for the response to these questions. But later he named the other representatives of the coalition. So the three mentioned people and a member from each party of the coalition makes the number five, which is equivalent to the number of members of the opposition delegation. Perhaps Sargsyan didn’t wish to directly respond to the Congress but he picked some other formulations for that. Or maybe a new group will be formed consisting of the members of the three parties of the coalition and where the mentioned three officials will not be included. Perhaps by that statement Sargsyan also refused the idea of the dialog but he didn’t do it directly in order not to make it a subject for discussion for the international community. The impression is that by hi uncertain statements he doesn’t mind the dialog but creates a situation to ensure that the dialog doesn’t take place. It is not excluded that by offering options he is attempting to create an imitation of dialog and try to stretch the time. Indeed, here it should be the Congress to come up with the next step. Let us also remember that the opposition also set the date of the next rally due on June 30 and prior to that he expects concrete answers from Sargsyan. About two hours after the latter’s statement ANC released a statement, which reads, “In light of Serzh Sargsyan’s June 17 statement on the Armenian National Congress-authorities dialogue, we inform: Taking into account certain unspecific parts of the statement and the fact that there was more than one meaning to separate formulations, the Congress considers it appropriate to give its assessment after discussing the statement with its structures.” So it turns out that Sargsyan statement was unclear for the ANC as well. And it turns out that now ANC should wait to see how the President interprets and clarifies his own statement. Yesterday the whole political circle of Armenia was trying to understand what exactly Sargsyan meant in his statement. Yesterday both the government and opposition camps didn’t wish to comment on the statement. Only the chair of the Henchak Party Lyudmilla Sargsyan said that the text of the statement was worked on for quite long. That way the President tried to suffice the government and also leave some space for the opposition to ponder. “I think this is an intermediate statement to avoid any panic in the governing team to stretch time till the meetings in PACE and Kazan. I hope there will be a new statement after Kazan, which will bring more clarity to the process if dialog. That way the opposition wouldn’t draw its conclusions,” added Sargsyan. And we may draw many conclusions from yesterday’s statement of the President. First of all, he perhaps unclearly but at least responded to the ANC. Perhaps today or very soon the government representatives will start to interpret what’s hidden behind the statement of their boss. This statement makes it clear that Sargsyan had certain pressure within his party and the coalition and the opposition camp. He picked such formulations to avoid tensions. But ANC has already appeared in uncertainty. “We should know whether the authorities are accepting this suggestion. We don’t want unclear statements and announcements. If the government denies our suggestion ANC will consider it a challenge directed to the Armenian people because in that case the government will demonstrate that besides force they don’t understand any other language,” yesterday said ANC coordinator Levon Zurabyan before the statement of the President. And in these conditions next week Sargsyan will leave for Strasbourg to make a speech at the PACE session and then he will leave for Kazan to meet with Dmitry Medvedev and Ilham Aliyev.