“Armenia should not have become a slave for Karabagh. This was all
because of Robert Kocharyan”, said political figure Vahagn Khachatryan
during the seminar entitled “Armenia’s Foreign Politics and the
Karabagh Conflict” at the Armenian National Movement on Monday.
Does Karabagh really have that kind of significance for Armenia
already? In response to this question, Vahagn Khachatryan said the
following: “We must not go with what Karabagh wants. On the contrary,
Armenia must lead its foreign politics in a way so that Karabagh has
nothing to gain from it. I am simply switching the places-favoring
Armenia. By doing that, we can get a pretty clear idea of what we are
going to do in the next couple of years. We don’t have to wait until we
finish taking the tactic steps, but rather we must plan out strategic
foreign politics in which we must include Karabagh and the Karabagh
peace settlement. But what we are doing now is totally the opposite. We
think that what we are doing is just what Karabagh needs, but in
reality that is not how it is. Nagorno Karabagh does not need that.
That’s how the modern day officials want it to be and that’s how they
are carrying out their actions. As a result, we are beginning to lose
our independence slowly yet surely. I am referring to Armenia’s
relations with Russia, Iran and the European Union.” We reminded him of
the fact that it was the same Armenian National Movement, that in 1997
was insisting that Robert Kocharyan was the only one who could find a
solution to the Karabagh peace settlement. In response to this, Vahagn
Khachatryan said: “The whole concept and logic of it all is that one
person, who is responsible for Nagorno Karabagh, who comes to Armenia
and is in charge of the whole country, will certainly take certain
steps in solving the Karabagh conflict the best way possible. During
that time, the former Armenian authorities did not want to offer a
solution to the problem which would benefit the citizens of Nagorno
Karabagh. On the other hand, there was Levon Ter-Petrosyan’s formula:
Armenia accepts everything that benefits Nagorno Karabagh. But life
took us in a different direction and showed that things are not like
that. Upon becoming the president of Armenia, Robert Kocharyan’s issue
was not the Karabagh peace settlement, but rather solving the problems
of the authorities governing alongside him.”
During the same seminar, V. Khachatryan announced that “anyone who took
on the job of being president would have economic successes, but it
turned out that Kocharyan came and only he enjoyed all of that.” We
also asked him to clarify what kind of economic successes he was
talking about, what were the successes that Robert Kocharyan enjoyed in
1998? “The person who took on the role of president of Armenia at that
time would have many economic successes, exactly what happened with
Robert Kocharyan. There was only a slight difference, here and there. I
am certain that it would have been better, because the economic
principles accepted within the framework of the reforms project in 1994
and have been applied ever since, had a purpose of creating a free
market economy in Armenia. A market economy was accepted into Armenia,
but it was not free. For us, it was more like a monopoly in which the
people don’t benefit, but rather, a certain group of people that now
holds back the development of economy. That same group sees the results
in economy today and that is due to the fact the authority is trying to
take matters into its own hands. It is trying to have one group that
will always be under its control and so it can violate the laws and
govern economy as a whole. If anyone tries to object to that, I have
proof by calculations. Of course, they can conceal all of this by
comparing all of this with the dark years of the 1990s. They still
don’t want to understand what was hidden beneath all of that. It is
easy to compare darkness with cold and light with warmth. It is easy,
but in reality light and warmth might have been a little more than what
we expected. The number of people in poverty in Armenia could have been
20%, rather than 45%. I am certain of that. The last class of society,
the small and middle business would have been stabilized. So, they
shouldn’t hide anything from the people.”