The wife of former RA Foreign Minister Alexander Arzumanyan, Melissa Brown, spoke at the public meeting held by the “Alternative” NGO/political initiative. She said that she had met with her husband on Wednesday and expressed the former foreign minister’s greetings.
“I love him for his freedom and strength and although he is currently in jail, his strength is inside,” said Mrs. Brown, adding that “Washington Post” will soon write about Arzumanyan’s case. The major part of the public meeting was dedicated to the Artsakh issue. The 1,000 demonstrators who had gathered received detailed information regarding Nagorno-Karabakh up to the state revolt of 1998 and the developments after that. It was recalled that in November, 1999, Robert Kocharyan signed the Istanbul charter, by which he recognized the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, that NKR and the surrounding territories were qualified as territories occupied by the RA in various international documents, Armenia was qualified as an “aggressor”, “occupant”, a “country that had perpetrated ethnic-cleansing in the territory of Azerbaijan”, etc. Nikol Pashinian argued that during the past ten years, the two Alievs of Azerbaijan solved the Nagorno-Karabakh issue by keeping the status quo and isolating Armenia by way of Robert Kocharyan. An announcement regarding the Nagorno-Karabakh issue was read with an alternative to return to the principles proposed by the first president of the Republic of Armenia, Levon Ter-Petrosyan (in fact, the first president’s name was greeted with great enthusiasm). In the end, Pashinyan stressed that the opposition must participate with one candidate in the 2008 Armenian presidential elections, and next Friday at 8 p.m. Pashinyan will speak at “Freedom” square.