During the press conference held for a special purpose the member of the ARF Supreme Body officially stated that the ARF quits being a member of the governmental coalition. The ARF refuses all of its ministerial portfolios and becomes an opposition party. In a written statement, the Dashnaktsutyun leadership in Armenia reiterated the nationalist party’s condemnation of an agreement on the normalization of Turkish-Armenian relations announced by the two governments on Wednesday. “We also have fundamental disagreements with the Armenian authorities’ position on some issues raised during Armenia-Turkey negotiations,” it said. The dramatic move followed a Saturday meeting between Sargsyan and two Dashnaktsutyun leaders, Hrant Margaryan and Armen Rustamyan. According to the latter, Sargsyan briefed them on the essence of the still unpublicized “roadmap” for gradually normalizing Turkish-Armenian relations. “The president’s explanations did not satisfy us,” Rustamyan said. Dashnaktsutyun strongly condemned the roadmap agreement just hours after it was announced by the Armenian and Turkish foreign ministries on the night from April 22-23. Earlier last week, Margaryan publicly lambasted Sargsyan’s year-long diplomatic overtures to Turkey, saying that Yerevan has made major concessions to Ankara while failing to secure the lifting of the Turkish economic blockade of Armenia. Rustamyan echoed that criticism, saying that Armenia has effectively ended its long-standing insistence on an unconditional establishment of diplomatic relations and reopening of the border between the two estranged nations. He claimed that Ankara continues to make that conditional on a resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and an end to the decades-long campaign for worldwide recognition of the 1915-1918 mass killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as genocide. “The Turks are now trying to turn those preconditions into conditions and include them into a package deal with Armenia,” Rustamyan told a news conference. “For them the key thing is to exploit the process of normalization and they are doing that very well,” he said. In a joint statement, the RPA and its two remaining coalition partners, the Prosperous Armenia and Legal State parties, said they “respect” Dashnaktsutyun’s decision but believe that the rapprochement with Turkey is good for Armenia. “We welcome President Serzh Sargsyan’s steps aimed at the normalization of Turkish-Armenian relations without preconditions and within reasonable time frames,” they said. That policy will not undermine efforts at greater international recognition of the genocide or lead to more Armenian concessions to Azerbaijan, added the statement. The other major opposition force, the Armenian National Congress (ANC) had no comment on the development. Both the ANC and Heritage demanded late last week the immediate disclosure of the Turkish-Armenian roadmap. The Dashnaktsutyun statement said that the party, which is particularly influential in the worldwide Armenian Diaspora, will now position itself as a “full-fledged alternative” to the country’s leadership and try to “counterbalance and restrain” the Sargsyan administration. Rustamyan also made clear that unlike the ANC, Dashnaktsutyun will not seek to topple Sargsyan or force pre-term national elections for the time being. "We were at variance with Robert Kocharyan in light of certain foreign issues but this time all discords are insurmountable." Armen Rustamyan and ARF Bureau member Hrant Margaryan met with Serzh Sargsyan last week but the meeting didn’t affect ARF’s decision to withdraw from the coalition. "The President assures us that he is going to better the Armenian-Turkish relations at the same pace." On April 24 the whole world expected U.S. President Barack Obama to pronounce the word genocide. In this context, the ARF- Dashnaktsutyun blames the Armenian leadership. "But for the FMs’ joint statement in Switzerland, Obama would have serious problems for not uttering the word genocide. The ARF has already got concerns from U.S. congressmen working on the universal recognition of the Armenian Genocide." The ARF- Dashnaktsutyun intends to become a full alternative opposition, better the political domain and pursue national and state interests in Armenian-Turkish and Karabakh issues. Armen Rustamyan noted that the party’s withdrawal from the coalition has nothing to do with the mayoral election. The party doesn’t avoid criticism as it makes their rows firmer. The ARF reasoned such a step by “insuperable principle discord” which arouse over the foreign political line and is connected with “the adoption of a joint statement on the eve of April 24 by Armenian and Turkish foreign ministers within the context of anti-Armenian preconditions of Turkish authorities”. “We have always been sure that one of the directions of country’s national security strategy is the general recognition and condemnation of the Armenian Genocide, particularly by Turkey. This has been regarded not only within the context of restoration of historical justice but also within the improvement of the atmosphere of mutual trust in the region and prevention of such crimes in the future”, the ARF’s April 27 statement says. Rustamyan informed that on Saturday they met with the Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan and discussed the established situation. The Armenian President noted that he will continue the present political line of development of relations between Armenia and Turkey and at the same time assured that he will not allow conditioning the Armenian-Turkish relations by the regulation of Nagorno Karabakh issue nor will the process of recognition of the Armenian Genocide be speculated. Armen Rustamyan doesn’t rule out the ARF’s collaboration with the Armenian National Congress (ANC) in the future. Rustamyan reminded all political forces that they are on the same plane which lacks one wing and cannot fly. "A bird cannot fly with one wing. We are going to be the lost wing." However, let us mention that the ANC had always criticized the policies of Serzh Sargsyan and especially his policy regarding the NKR conflict resolution and normalization of Turkish-Armenian relations. The ANC was the first one to condemn the statements of the three foreign affairs ministers. Those statements related to the road map provisions. In means that at least in this regard the attitudes of the ANC and the ARF match. Rustamyan doesn’t yet make any predictions of the possibility of demanding Serzh Sargsyan’s resignation in order to neutralize the hazard Armenia in the context of Turkish-Armenian relations. Rustamyan didn’t exclude that the ARF businessmen may be subject to tax terror but he meanwhile expressed hope that it wouldn’t happen.
