As it’s known by the mediation of the member of “Karabakh” committee, academician Rafael Ghazaryan on October 8 RA First President Levon Ter-Petrosyan and the first Prime Minister and NDU chairman Vazgen Manukyan met in another “Karabakh” committee member Samson Ghazaryan’s house after a 14-year interval.
The meeting was hosted by another member of “Karabakh” committee, Ashot Manucharyan and former RA FM Alexander Arzumanyan. Ghazaryan wasn’t at the meeting because of health issues. And as a result the guest of the Urbat Press Club was the NDU chairman Vazgen Manukyan and apparently all the questions of the journalists related to that meeting. Let’s remember that on Thursday the NDU Board has proposed Manukyan’s candidature for the Presidential elections 2008. Meanwhile Manukyan was entrusted to form a joint opposition field. The leader of the NDU Manukyan made evaluation of the discourse about the common candidate. He explained why he is running in the election alone and will not ally with any other candidate. “The entire society should unite. I imagine there is a document and the entire society, it could be a pact, an oath, the society signs to it asserting that it wants to live in such a country and I swear not to spare effort to make such a country. There will be unity if one million, two million people sign to it. Following one person or another is not unity. Persons implement that program, but persons are not programs,” says the leader of the NDU. He informed that he had tried to initiate a meeting with Ter-Petrosyan in 2005 but this time the meeting was unexpected for him and was initiated by the first President. About the meeting Manukyan said, “We sat and talked. We didn’t take any obligation to each other; didn’t make any deals. We have refreshed our relations, which were deteriorated 14-15 years ago. As of political agreement it didn’t happen because each of us had his own opinion about political processes. We have also argued a bit.” They have argued about the following: Manukyan expressed an opinion that in Armenia the model established in 1994 still exists. Both Robert Kocharyan and Serzh Sargsyan perfected this evil model when they got into power. Ter-Petrosyan didn’t quite agree with this. The second part of the argument related to the Presidential elections 1996. “They ask me whether we forgive each other or not. There is nothing personal here. What happened in Armenia was very bad and shook the whole history of Armenia. I am sure that I won; he is sure that he won,” said Manukyan and added, “but somebody is responsible for the negative deeds. Right? In this case somebody must be accountable for that. Many people were beaten, arrested, the whole building was seized.” As to what is awaiting us, he is reluctant to make forecasts, saying only that in all the previous elections his opponent was the government, and Vazgen Manukyan will be aspiring to being the favorite. He says sometimes he succeeded and sometimes he failed. For other developments, Vazgen Manukyan prefers to speak after the nomination of candidates and certainly in the political sphere. “You see, the political situation is much more complicated than if we are speaking about personalities. It is pointless to speak about the same persons all the time, especially when nobody has been nominated,” Vazgen Manukyan says. He says there are several options even in case he learns he has no chance to win, and only time will show which of them will work. According to the leader of the National Democratic Union, the election process will reveal the main favorite who will be ahead of all the others. “Imagine one outruns you. What do you need to do? Either you need to think about joining him because he is far ahead of you and you have no chance to reach him, so it is pointless to continue to struggle. On the other hand, if you decide to join, you ask yourself whether the idea of joining matches your ideas. There may be a gap, certainly, but will it be helpful to the country? If you think the ideas match, you will join, if not, you may not join and not disturb him either,” Vazgen Manukyan says. He says it is too early to discuss these developments. To the question why Artashes Geghamyan withdrew his candidature during the 2nd round of the elections Manukyan answered, “No, Geghamyan was withdrawn. He didn’t withdraw his candidature with his own will.” By the way, there was no lack of jokes during yesterday’s press conference. To the interpretation of the journalists that Shavarsh Kocharyan hasn’t yet announced about his notion to support Manukyan the latter said that several years ago 300 thousand people died because of the tsunami. “You know the current situation is like tsunami and you are asking me about Goharik’s purse, which was lost.”