During a press conference a couple of days ago, member of the ARF Bureau and Armenian National Committee correspondent Kiro Manoyan said that it’s quite possible that the pro-government ARF party will hold meetings aimed against President Robert Kocharyan.
When the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairmen revealed the secret principles of the Karabakh conflict settlement, it turned out that those principles were very similar to the phased version proposed by Levon Ter-Petrosyan in 1997. At the time, the ARF considered the former president’s proposal as “the sale of Karabakh” and held meetings demanding Ter-Petrosyan’s resignation.
Question: why aren’t they demanding Kocharyan’s resignation now when the authorities told Foreign Minister of Armenia Vartan Oskanyan to announce that they agree with the principles and are ready to sign under the document? Let’s not forget that the return of the liberated territories is included in the principles.
“Those principles are not the same. In 1997, we weren’t dealing with Karabakh’s autonomy right. Let me remind you that the ARF wasn’t the first one demanding the president’s resignation back in 1997, but rather the president’s close friends. Today, there is no such thing,” said Kiro Manoyan. But he also said that the ARF doesn’t approve the current proposed principles.
“The ARF doesn’t really approve the proposed plan for the Karabakh conflict settlement because we’re dealing with the return of territories through compromises and the autonomy right is not fully discussed the way it should be. But we’re not doing anything about that since Azerbaijan no longer accepts that,” said Manoyan as he drew parallels between the ARF and Azerbaijan.
It is worth mentioning that although Azerbaijan doesn’t approve the current Karabakh conflict settlement principles, however, it’s possible that Aliev just might sign the agreement due to the pressure by the West. In that case, what will the ARF do if Robert Kocharyan agrees to return the liberated territories based on the agreement?
“We will express our opinion and pressure Kocharyan legally,” said Minoyan as he partly revealed what the Dashnaktsutyun intends on doing. In response to the question about holding meetings, Manoyan said:
“It depends on the flow of events. I repeat, we will express our opinion legally.”
Can we suppose that the ARF will hold a meeting against the government and Robert Kocharyan if the ARF doesn’t approve the Karabakh conflict settlement package deal? ARF Supreme Body member Armen Rustamyan had this to say in response to that during a recent interview:
“We will hold many meetings. If the approaches of the ARF and the government don’t correspond and if the president presents the same document as in 1998, it doesn’t matter which president goes against the ARF.”
According to Manoyan, the Karabakh conflict will not be settled this year even if the sides come to terms.
“It’s expected to see the presidents come to terms regarding the conflict settlement principles in 2006 and not settle the conflict. Even if the principles are agreed on, it will be necessary to lead negotiations for a couple of more years because there are a number of details to be discussed” said Kiro Manoyan as he touched upon the announcement about the Karabakh conflict settlement during the “G8” summit.
Kiro Manoyan also discussed the current tension in the Middle East. Since the current wars in the Middle East are a result of the unsettled regional conflicts, I asked Mr. Manoyan whether the same thing won’t happen in Armenia due to the unsettled Karabakh conflict.
“Any unsettled conflict may lead to the restart of war. But I think that the current situation in Lebanon says a lot about how weak that country is,” he said.
Manoyan says that although Israel reigns supreme in the region, however the attack wouldn’t have been possible if Lebanon were strong enough to withstand.
“I think that we Armenians have to learn from that and understand that we must strengthen our country because the same thing may happen here. So, there may be people who want to lead a different kind of politics and take steps threatening Armenia’s national security,” said the Armenian National Committee correspondent.
The ARF Bureau member says that the upcoming parliamentary elections will give Armenia the opportunity to get stronger and be able to remain strong during the events taking place in the region and elsewhere.
“It depends on us whether we will take advantage of that opportunity or not. But the events in Lebanon, beginning with the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers by “Hzbollah”, showed that if a country is weak, then there may be events depriving the country of its statehood.”
According to Kiro Manoyan, Turkey’s possible invasion on Iraq will not encourage Azerbaijan to invade Armenia. He says that whereas it may take a couple of weeks for Turkey to invade Iraq, Azerbaijan won’t restart a war with Armenia anytime soon because the Baku-Tbilisi-Jeyhan pipeline has just started functioning. However, Manoyan believes that Azerbaijan may attempt to start another war with Armenia with the help of Turkey in 4-5 years.
P.S. During the press conference, Kiro Manoyan said that in some way, Armenia has an opportunity to be an intermediary for settling the Middle Eastern conflicts.
“I think that it’s possible to have Armenia become more active and solve its issues in the future based on its participation,” said Manoyan. It’s interesting: if Armenia can be an intermediary for settling the conflicts of other countries, then why doesn’t it settle the Karabakh conflict?