– In 1997 Robert Kocharyan came to power by basing on Karabagh conflict resolution. Do you think the government is going to freeze the resolution of the conflict by 2007 Parliamentary elections to ensure that none of the oppositionists base on the conflict resolution during their campaigns?
– Our approach was clear at the time. When Levon Ter-Petrosyan was doing any dangerous step we were organizing counter rallies against that – our meetings in the cinema house, etc. Now we see that the negotiation process proceeds in a unacceptable manner. I’d love to know that Kocharyan is on the right track in terms of negotiating over the conflict. That’s when we’d support him. What’s the point of freezing the negotiations if everything is OK?
– So that you don’t build your campaigns on that issue.
– Why? Why shouldn’t we speak about it to make it better? It would be much better for him as he will say that he’s doing something. That’s why he’s being criticized. And people would say that the opposition is so bad. They don’t let the government to do their wise job. What they are doing is waiting for the elections to have obedient political forces in Parliament and make a decision opposing the desires of people. This issue must be solved on behalf of the people because they fought for the liberation of the territories. I just returned from the “Deymurdyan” conference on Armenia-Azerbaijan-Karabagh and have quite serious information from the Minsk group co-chairmen. They claim that the issue of territory return is solved. All is left to do is conduct a referendum, which was raised by Mamedyarov. If they consider the referendum their major issue then Armenia must also take a step. There can be no referendum because the constitution of Azerbaijan doesn’t say anything about Karabagh. If Karabagh is not considered a separate unit then how are we going to conduct a referendum?
– Do you mean that the negotiation process was frozen because Kocharyan didn’t like this version? What about the attitude of Azerbaijan and the co-chairmen.
– The thing is that Azerbaijan also has a problem. If Armenia is saying that it cannot sign under such a document because of its inner political situation. Azerbaijan must agree with. No matter when it’s signed Azerbaijan is going to reach its main goal.
– In his last interview to TV companies Kocharyan finally said why the elections are falsified in Armenia. He believes that it’s the fault of the opposition, which is not able to find 2000 honest people among themselves, who won’t be bribed at the precincts and will follow the process of elections. If the opposition is not able to do it now how is it going to govern the country if they get elected?
– Just imagine a situation when 2000 people are struggling but the voting takes place this way. Six out of nine members vote for and only three vote against. The decision is made by the majority will. Now what can the honest man do here? I’d ask Kocharyan to explain to me this logic of 2000 honest people. Maybe some “smart” person has prompted Kocharyan and now he’s repeating this. If the system is like this. What can we do? Imagine that we don’t exist and we don’t struggle. Who’s going to be responsible for the country? The president or the opposition?
– In that same press conference Kocharyan also explained why oppositional blocs are not formed in Armenia. According to Kocharyan the reason is the lack of ideologies and contradictions. However, on the other hand, he as a plus for the Prosperous Armenia has also mentioned their slogan besides the charities. The slogan is “we are thinking about people”. Do you agree?
– Agree with what? How can the charity be an ideology for a political party? The world hasn’t seen anything like this. On the other hand, if somebody ever gave a chance to prosper like them I’d definitely sacrifice part of my money on charities for further prosperity. There is no ideological contradiction between them because the party is supported by the president. Our ideology is that the DPA is a social democratic party, which has a national model adapted to Armenia. I and any member of our party are ready to have an ideological struggle with anybody.
– According to Kocharyan power must belong to experienced people. He compared the leader with an experienced driver. If the driver is not good the car, in this case the country, will go through lots of challenges. When saying experienced he defiantly doesn’t mean any oppositional force. What can you say bout this?
– The driver must be not only experienced and skillful but also moral. When saying moral I mean sufficient knowledge, which is necessary to fix the problem. There is no need to invite an uncle from abroad to come to solve issues for us.