Businessman Gagik Tsarukyan sought yesterday to end an unfolding war of words between his Prosperous Armenia Party and President Serzh Sargsyan’s Republican Party (RPA) that was sparked by his weekend remarks. Tsarukyan said his claim that former President Robert Kocharyan could have easily taken over the RPA were misunderstood by the Prosperous Armenia’s senior partner in the governing coalition. “I assure that with my statement I did not mean to offend the Republican Party and the RPA chairman,” he said in remarks. “I just wanted to mention one more time that the attempts of other people to connect the Prosperous Armenia with other forces, is senseless. The Prosperous Armenia is an independent political party with its clear missions and goals. In the political sector we have always been correct and with respect to others. This is going to be our style in the future as well,” yesterday stated Gagik Tsarukyan. By this he appeased the negative and aggressive moods accumulated within the RPA. The damage control effort will hardly prevent more speculation about mounting tensions between Armenia’s two main governing parties. They both have expressed their intention to win parliamentary elections due in May 2012. Also, the Prosperous Armenia has so far declined to pledge support for Sargsyan’s widely anticipated reelection bid in a presidential ballot to be held in 2013. Tsarukyan is believed to maintain close ties with Kocharyan. The latter has kept a low profile since handing over power to Sargsyan in April 2008. In a rare public statement in April 2009, Kocharyan said he has not yet decided to return to active politics. By this statement the RPA members were resented and they have been for days responding to Tsarukyan each of them with the potential of their creativity. Most probably Tsarukyan yesterday made this statement to avoid confrontation with Serzh Sargsyan personally. Tsarukyan’s spokesman, Khachik Galstyan, scoffed at the RPA criticism, saying that he will not even bother to brief the Prosperous Armenia leader on them. Those attacking Tsarukyan are not “weighty and authoriative” enough, he said.
