Says the director of the Armenian Center for National Studies (ACNIS) Richard Giragosian
– What is the result of the dialog between the Armenian National Congress and the government? Did the government really yield to the Congress, which they wouldn’t do up until recently? Is that any other purpose?
– What we see currently is a result of negotiations and certain rapprochement without the use of official technologies. It is interesting and important that the government finally decided to accept certain demands of the opposition and also determined to become more democratic. Here there are two important motives. The first one is the statement of the first president about the objective investigation of March 1 events and second motive is the lack of the legitimacy of the government. And third the government feels the discontent of the society to the government and they feel that they need to initiative deeper reforms. But the question is whether they are not too late. But this also shows that the actual conflict is not between Ter-Petrosyan and Serzh Sargsyan but between Sargsyan and Kocharyan.
– Is the former president the motive of that?
– This means that there is no alternative to this other than implementing deeper reforms. The actual political conflict is more radical. In this conflict there is Kocharyan as well as Sargsyan. Kocharyan was not the motive. March 1 events are not investigated yet. The public demand for changes grows but I wish to say that the conflict is no more between the government and opposition but within the governmental elite.
– At least on the surface Kocharyan doesn’t show any signs of activation. He doesn’t interfere in the political life. Why is he so dangerous that made the opposition and the government change their standpoints?
– The new and independent investigation of March 1 events may embarrass and baffle the former president Robert Kocharyan and others, who accepted orders from him.
– But during the past three years Sargsyan was not particularly against the enforcement of these decisions. He was within the incumbent government. He was the prime minister and finally the March 1 events took place due to his presidency.
– But there is difference because president Sargsyan inherited that. These decisions were mostly enforced during Kocharyan’s tenure. I don’t know the actual motives but the important thing is not why he does that. The important thing is that he does that especially he is trying to resolve the riddle of March 1 events.
– Are you sure that the March 1 events will be fully investigated?
– The important thing is that this decision was made and this is a test to understand how the investigation is going to be conducted. And this is an experiment to understand whether the government keeps its word.
– Will Kocharyan try to oppose the dialog between the incumbent government and opposition or will he try to run in the upcoming elections?
– Today nobody knows that. I wouldn’t like to speak about the internal political matters. I am more specialized on foreign affairs. This is one of the issues that people constantly speculate on.
– The rest of the parties of the opposition are pretty jealous about the possible dialog between the Congress and the government – Heritage, ARF and the New Times. Do their concerns have actual grounds? Are they right to suppose that they might be ousted from political processes as a result of the Congress-government rapprochement? At any rate they reacted pretty painfully to this rapprochement.
– I cannot say for sure. I don’t think they are jealous. Now we have a very multi-layer opposition and each of them have their own rules of the game.
– Is there any foreign influence on the internal political situation? The super powers of the world – USA, Europe, have they played any role in these processes? Because we often hear opinions that the ANC-government dialog is stimulated and supported by international organizations and the west.
– This influence is much less than the people think. The actual factor is the growing demand of the society for reforms and the level of their discontent. And this fact has a stronger influence on the government with low influence than any kind of pressure on part of Europe or USA or Russia. And if we look back at the recent years we will see that the foreign forces are much more passive in relation to Armenia than in the previous years. Indeed they are more active when it comes to the threat of the NKR war, Armenia-Turkey rapprochement, etc.
– Was the Armenia-Turkey rapprochement process suspended or there is still some motion in the process?
– Nothing was changed. This process was temporarily frozen till the elections in Turkey in June. But this was also done at an official level. There is change and shift in the public level especially if we take into account the fact that the April 24 Memorial Day was celebrated in range of Turkish cities.
– It seems the resolution of the NKR conflict has also entered a deadlock. And whatever is happening doesn’t seem very useful and in favor of Armenia.
– Indeed, it is in a deadlock and this matter has been in a deadlock for many years. But now there is one difference. We have returned to the origins. And the whole peaceful process has only one point – to neutralize the threat of war on part of Azerbaijan. By meaning origins I mean that they don’t speak about the Madrid principles or the status of NKR but they speak of prevention of war. There is a necessity to keep Azerbaijan around the negotiation table. They threaten to deflect from the negotiations.
– Perhaps the threats of Azerbaijan are aimed at keeping Armenia and the international community in threat and confusion or they might have internal political purposes.
– I wish it was so but many Armenian soldiers have been killed as a result of Azerbaijani threats.