Struggle “to grab more”

03/11/2011 Armine AVETYAN

– Mr. Manucharyan Armenian atomic power station once again runs the risk of being closed. According to certain viewpoints the main reason is the competition between Russia and the West in our region. Do you agree with that point?

– The world we live in where everybody wants to grab what is important for them, whether it is an atomic power station or other sphere of influence makes us face these kinds of issues all the time. We are the part of this world. Thus, various drawings are possible in terms of our atomic power station. The fundamental matter is that atomic power station gives Armenia a special status which we should keep. The country possessing an atomic power station as well has science, high technological level, relevant institution of engineers etc. And all this puts the country on a level higher as compared to the countries that do not have it. From this viewpoint to maintain our status as a country possessing atomic technologies is obligatory.

– Was the firing of 158 workers of atomic power station simply a reason to close it?

– I can’t interpret these nuances, since more detailed explanation and work is required to clarify all the circumstances. In Armenia everybody will strive to gain more money in this case. The workers of atomic power station should try cope with the situation. Or the relevant Minister and Ministry should be more reasonable and raise their salary. In Armenia we educate people who want to grab everything. And if a high-ranking official, an intellectual, the bishop of the country can do it, it is not clear why an ordinary worker of atomic power station or his boss shouldn’t do it. Everybody tries to grab as much as he can. This is an obsession for money. It will pass sooner or later but we need to maintain sustainable our atomic technology.

– What objective did the President Serzh Sargsyan’s visit to Russia follow? Is it in the political framework or is it related to the concrete issues of our country?

– Fundamental processes are going on in the world. The Russian Federation, as a part of that world, put forward a strategic issue. The President’s visit is related to this strategic issue in some way. What is called Eurasian Union is a huge geopolitical project. Some people may think that this is a part of Putin’s pre-electoral campaign, but it is not completely true. What Russia or the world will be able to do in this sense? What Armenia and RA government will do in the frameworks of that project? These are the fundamental issues.

– There were different viewpoints regarding the Eurasian Union, about its being an anti-western project- directed against the EU and other international unions.

– Its content on the globe nowadays depends on what philosophy it will convey. I do not know that part yet. The project part which is always declared in any project was declared this time as well.

– Won’t Armenia be more under Russia’s influence once it joins the project?

– That depends on constituent parts of the project. If it is expressed by a standard imperialistic way, the way it exists in the world, like American or European imperialism, and any other variants, we will face a question here, when we say about how the country falls into dependence or what advantages it acquires. It turns to absolutely another thing when having a new philosophy; here we become the participants of crating another world. We can discuss only after receiving the question to that answer.

– There is another opinion that one of the purposes of S. Sargsyan’s visit was to clarify the issue of Prosperous Armenia party’s being or not being in coalition.

– There are so many small issues. In this situation there is totally no difference for our people about anybody’s grasping anything in this world, because if the grasping system is going to remain, we are also going to be unhappy, we will leave our country as we used to do early, thus we will not have a motherland. Now it is a completely another case when in the same Russia new fundamental things are created, the same things are created in Armenia as well, and they are able to cooperate with similar things in the world. That is to say the world needs new people, new approaches, and other news. If the world is lacking all these things, there is no need to discuss about them with you. They are minor and narrow issues having no consequences. The topic of how much people capture in Armenia has nothing to do with politics, it is an economic outline. Are you that much interested in who is going to be the number 1 oligarch in Armenia and who is going to be the 2nd one, who will grasp how much, and how many jeeps will they have? These are useless issues.