The subsequent meeting of the “Alternative” NGO/political initiative took place on Friday at the Square located near the Matenadaran and despite the rainy weather; there were still an equal number of people gathered at the meeting.
The event organizers informed the gatherers from the start that the next meeting was going to take place on March 23 at 5 p.m. in “Freedom” Square. “Alternative” has appealed to the corresponding bodies according to the law and has not received a denial in the course of time determined by law, which means that the meeting is legal. “Alternative” has also appealed to the municipality to conduct a meeting on March 30 at 5 p.m. at “Freedom” Square, however this time they were prohibited to conduct a meeting at “Freedom” Square on that day. On this occasion, “Alternative” plans on appealing to court which, by law, is obligated to reach a verdict on the issue within 24 hours. The problem is that the law states all the cases when the municipality can prohibit conducting a meeting. The municipality correspondents were not able to state any certain case that allows prohibition of the meeting.
The meeting on Friday did not take long due to the weather. Representative of “Alternative” and editor-in-chief of “Armenian Times” daily Nikol Pashinyan made a speech during the meeting. He mainly referred to the Nagorno-Karabakh issue. Let us recall that the U.S. State Department recently released its annual Human Rights Reporot where there is one unprecedented formulation regarding Nagorno-Karabakh.
“The Republic of Armenia continues to keep the territories of Azerbaijan, including the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh and the seven regions, occupied”.
“Since 1998, we have always lost when Robert Kocharyan began getting involved in the Nagorno-Karabakh issue. In his announcements, R. Kocharyan always promises that Nagorno-Karabakh must be granted independence, but the documents keep us more and more away from turning that dream into a reality,” said Pashinyan and added: “When Kocharyan came to power back in 1998, Nagorno-Karabakh was an absolute side for negotiations. Kocharyan came and got rid of Nagorno-Karabakh from the negotiations; in other words, with that first step he immediately deprived Nagorno-Karabakh of being internationally recognized. Shortly after the murders of October 27, 1999, he signed the OSCE Istanbul charter which indicates that the extreme interracial conflicts in the territory of the OSCE must be settled with no border violations and by the principle of territorial integrity”.
According to Pashinyan, this was the first case when an Armenian government official signs a document which states that Nagorno-Karabakh is a part of Azerbaijan. N. Pashinyan also recalled that after the signing of the Istanbul charter, there were suddenly formulations heard in the documents of international organizations, the articles of international presses and speeches by well-known diplomats that “Armenia has occupied the seven regions of Azerbaijan” and that “Nagorno-Karabakh is an inseparable part of Azerbaijan”.
“Now, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Armenia Vardan Oskanyan says that the U.S. State Department’s announcement is a misprint. He is the misprint. The misprint is President Robert Kocharyan. What we have to do now is fix that misprint if we want to live in a normal country five or ten years later. There is only one thing we have to keep in our minds in order to do that and that is impeachment. We must understand that impeachment is not simply saying “Leave, Robert”. Impeachment is the removal of Robert Kocharyan, his policies and getting rid of the results of his policies,” said Pashinyan.
Referring to the absurd reasons brought up by the municipality for prohibiting the meeting to be held at “Freedom” Square, Pashinyan mentioned that the people committing those illegal acts are doing that “with fear”.
“I have seen that fear. You can’t imagine what kinds of scared people I have seen. I promise that you will see those scared people,” he announced, calling on the people to go to “Freedom” Square because, according to Pashinyan, “Freedom” Square itself needs freedom.