It turns out that Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanian, whose name is also mentioned as the authorities’ stored candidate for the 2008 presidential elections, has started his campaign in a totally different field. No matter how strange it may sound, politician Vardan Oskanian has decided to get involved in benevolent rural programs.
For example, it was known from the message dispersed by the “Hayastan” All Armenian Fund on Monday that on February 16, Vardan Oskanian and executive director of the “Hayastan” All Armenian Fund Naira Melkumyan had an “important” meeting in Paris with benefactors and representatives of the international local bodies of the fund with the purpose of discussing the program aimed to develop more than 150 rural communities of Armenia and Artsakh. It’s really incomprehensive what the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Armenia has to do with the rural communities’ development program when Armenia has a Ministry of Agriculture to deal with that. However many describe Vardan Oskanian’s new “hobby” for rural programs as his political goals, which can’t be denied; he did say that he has many jobs and programs that he would like to continue doing. So, he has decided to do his PR through the means of helping the villages. But being the Foreign Minister, it turns out that Oskanian is also using his position and is doing his PR on the account of the Diaspora.
Oskanian had officially announced about that program in September 2006 during the “Armenia-Diaspora” conference and it will be officially presented to the Board of Trustees of the “Hayastan” All Armenian Fund during the session which will take place on May 7, 2007. Obviously, the money for implementing the program is not going to come out of Oskanian’s pocket; so, it was not by chance when he announced about the program during the “Armenia-Diaspora” conference in the presence of many big Armenian Diasporan businessmen. Our “friends from the Armenian Diaspora” quickly understood that Oskanian wasn’t simply making that announcement and is most definitely expecting financial aid. But before our “friends from the Armenian Diaspora” respond, Vardan Oskanian left for Paris for meetings. It is stated in the message dispersed by the All Armenian Fund that during his “important” meetings with benefactors and representatives of the local bodies of the international fund branches, the Armenian Foreign Minister has stated that “there is more incentive at the international level for helping Armenia and now is the right time for the Armenian Diaspora to once again unite with the “Hayastan” All Armenian Fund and help implement this large-scale rural communities’ development program”. So, V. Oskanian thinks that the Armenian Diaspora wakes up everyday with the “international incentive” to provide financial aid to Armenia.