Let’s mention those main points, which chairman of the Legal State Party, Artur Baghdasaryan expressed in his speech in the US Strategic and International Research Center. Also the audio recording of the speech is available at the website of the center.
Indeed, certain of his inner political remarks, may become a topic for separate publications. However, let’s speak about the regional vision of the Legal State chairman, because its discussion occupied the dominant part of his speech. The foreign political views of Baghdasaryan were also expressed in his article, published in Wall Street Journal, which is placed in the Legal State website in a slightly edited way. I am sure the readers will understand which parts of the text were edited once he/she reads our article today. Of course the guest of Armenia wouldn’t be able to avoid speaking about Karabagh conflict. When speaking about that Baghdasaryan says that he thinks that before compromising it’s necessary to perceive the necessity of compromising. There’s an impression that only he thinks about compromises in terms of regulating the conflict. He also says that if he deserves the trust of people to be elected he will take more courageous steps. Baghdasaryan also mentioned that there is no broad discussion about the conflict resolution in Armenia. If you compare this part of his speech (The unresolved conflict over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh must be resolved) to what’s been edited on the Legal State webpage, you’ll see the difference and reason why’ it has been done. The reason why Baghdasaryan calls Karabagh a disputed region and why he talks about it in the US remains mysterious. Why would he cross out the part about the “disputed region” in the Legal State website? Let the Legal State translators answer this question.
The next issue, which Baghdasaryan touched upon, is the Armenian-Turkish relations. That’s an issue, which is being constantly discussed by the political circles of the US in terms of passing the recognition through the Congress. So what does Baghdasaryan say about that in the US? It’s strange but he doesn’t say a word about the necessity of the recognition of the genocide in the article published by the Wall Street. Moreover, in his opinion most part of the Armenian elite is drowned in past. “However, too much focus on the sad memories hinders the process of establishing normal relations with neighbors – Turkey and Azerbaijan. This factor cannot be favorable for a long-term peace and diplomatic relations. We think that Armenia would benefit a lot from the energy resources of Azerbaijan if we had good relations with the mentioned country.”
What is the reason of his silence? Why does he even avoid speaking about that in the Strategic and International Research Center of the US? Instead he claims that “the power must be born from people… The democratic state in Armenia is compared with an extremely sick patient.” In fact, it turns out that Armenia doesn’t have any outer enemies and that the image of enemies is created within the Armenian society. Oh, yes, of course. For Baghdasaryan the future is more important than the sad memories from the past. Of course we should make our society realize that our enemy is not Turkey and that our negative relations isolate Armenia from the regional programs. However, Baghdasaryan didn’t mention how Armenia is going to benefit from the energy resources of Azerbaijan and Turkey. We all remember that even the ANM during its power, which had moderate attitude with Turkey didn’t succeed in benefiting anything from Azerbaijan. Baghdasaryan also tried to praise the ANM. Let Baghdasaryan and his foreign consultants think about the ways. Why does Baghdasaryan not have courage to announce that Turkey still refuses to recognize the Armenian genocide? Also another thesis is also interesting. According to that thesis Armenia has vassal dependence on Russia. Why was he silent though when he was chair of the NA when Russia called Armenia its fort? Why does he take all his award medals with such great pleasure? He said, “We support partnership relations. We don’t need king-vassal relations.”
Numerous examples like this may be mentioned. We just don’t know why Baghdasaryan was silent in the US about the fact that the head of the headquarters of the government during the referendum of the Constitution was his party deputy-chair, Mher Shahgeldyan. Why doesn’t he tell the Americans that his party occupied the send place after the elections after the Republican party of Kocharyan and Serge Sargsyan only after he had their “backup”? Why does he avoid to clearly speak about the Genocide in the event when this issue is going to be included in the agenda of the Congress? Why and who does he want to make understand?
P.S. After the publication of the first part of this article our newspaper received a letter from the chair of the youth wing of the Legal State Party, Samvel Farmanyan. The letter was full of accusations, threats and grammatical mistakes. Yesterday Farmanyan sent the brief version of his denial-letter. In particular he mentioned the part related to the Swedish conflict specialists and consultant and a close friend of Azerbaijan, Svante Kornel. The Legal State officially denies that Kornel has any relation with the Caucasian and Caspian Committee. “The operation of the committee is open and transparent and anybody may be introduced to it. During the last session of the committee a press conference was organized in participation of mass media.” Later he writes, “Farmanyan studied not in Upsala University but in Lund University and defended his MA degree not to Kornel but Hans Hegerdal. I first heard the name of Kornel in the article of 168-Zham daily newspaper. Both Farmanyan and Tigran Mkrtchyan didn’t know Kornel.” We wonder where Farmanyan knows from that Kornel was also a specialist of Caucasian Studies. We haven’t written about that in our last edition. Legal State, which blames us of unawareness often itself, shows unawareness. We’d like to inform the Legal State that US Congressmen McAuther and Gareth are members of an Armenian lobbying group.
(See http://www.anca.org/hill_staff/armenian_caucus.php ): Also Legal State in its two letters names 168-Zham a daily. We’ll consider the compliment of the Legal State to our newspaper and we are willing to appear in front of international instances.