Although Russian President Vladimir Putin didn’t mention anything new during his annual press conference on Thursday, however the word interchange “annual press conference” is already unusual for us Armenian journalists. Putin once again invited 1200 journalists to the Kremlin hall, including representatives of the world’s largest information agencies to direct their questions to the Russian president live. According to the Russian presses, Putin answered to 52 questions in three hours. Based on the answers, it turned out that whenever Putin is feeling down, he talks to his beloved dog Cony and reads Omar Khayam.
Armenian journalists have strictly limited methods of communication with the Armenian President. If you’re not a journalist working for Public Television (H1), H2 (Armenian Second Channel) or “ARMENIA” TV and don’t leave for foreign visits with Robert Kocharyan and provide current news coverage from other countries, then you are forced to roam the regions of Armenia with the Armenian President, dilly-dally all day long until you get a chance to talk to him in the office of the regional director in order to simply hear things that make no sense at all.
Back when Levon Ter-Petrosyan was president of Armenia, especially during the first years of his term, the president personally, or his press service, called journalists and held briefings. After a while, Ter-Petrosyan complained about the intellect of Armenian journalists, assuring that the journalists’ questions were uninteresting and meaningless and he put an end to press conferences. Editor in chief of “Aravot” daily and former press speaker of the first president of Armenia Aram Abrahamyan also recalled that Ter-Petrosyan stopped associating with mass media after his term in office. “168 Hours” asked Mr. Abrahamyan why a president like Putin who is known as being authoritarian holds live press conferences, while Armenian presidents prefer the mysterious silence.
“Russia and Armenia can’t be compared in that sense. Russia is incomparably interesting for the international community; however we can’t say the same for Armenia. The two presidents of Armenia were more open with journalists and the society during the beginning of their terms. I am not comparing the intellect, literacy or outlooks of Ter-Petrosyan and Robert Kocharyan; there is a huge difference. However both are rough, authoritarian leaders. If I’m not mistaken, Ter-Petrosyan held his last press conference on September 25, 1997 with the purpose of presenting his proposal for the Karabakh conflict settlement and generously inviting the public to a civilized debate. As Armenians saw, a civilized debate didn’t take place. The press conference before that was in 1993 (a four year interval), which was open to all presses (in fact, this was the press conference that Sergo Yeritsyan personally took part in-L.A.) When Shugaryan was Ter-Petrosyan’s press secretary, we used to organize press conferences once a week. Now I don’t know how many times a year press conferences are held. When “A1+” was still around, President Robert Kocharyan invited television network representatives to press conferences four times, including me, however he has only been inviting the three most responsible representatives for the past three years. He doesn’t even invite Petros (author and host of the show “Urvagits” [Prospectus] on “Kentron” television-L.A.) and Tigran Karapetyan (author and host of the shows “In Reality”, “Locomotive”, “Value of the Question”, “We’re looking for diamonds and other precious stones” and other shows and president of ALM holding-L.A.). He invites the most responsible; those who give such big “blows” that the president can give the counterattack from above”. I wouldn’t publish this next question if it weren’t for the response of Mr. Abrahamyan: “Do you think that the next president of Armenia (let’s conditionally observe Serge Sargsyan’s candidacy as the most possible) will also refrain from having contact with the public and journalists as much as his predecessors?”
“We mustn’t look at it theoretically or conditionally because the next president of Armenia is going to be Serge Sargsyan [this is my prognosis]. I am sure that in 2008, he will invite all, perhaps even oppositional journalists, but he will stop after 2010.” If we continue Aram Abrahamyan’s “prognosis”, then the next press speaker will be Seyran Shahsuvaryan; in that case, by editing Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy a little, it is worth taking into consideration that that will be the time when all happy journalists of Armenia will be similar to one another and all unhappy journalists will be different from one another. Since Victor Soghomonyan is still the Armenian President’s press secretary, I tried to find out from him whether or not Robert Kocharyan is getting ready to meet with media representatives besides the “marvelous trio”. “The president is on vacation; when he returns, I will discuss that with him and respond.”