The meeting of Armenian National Congress will be held at Freedom Square today, and as ANC leader Levon Ter-Petrosyan announced on the 8th of April, it will either be a day of division or a dialogue. The events and developments of the last 20 days have shown that it becomes more likely to have a dialogue though it actually seems to be in process for already a long time. The authorities who almost ignored the demands of ANC for three years fulfilled two of the three demands of Congress just in two weeks: President Serzh Sargsyan promised to put fresh impetus to the revelation of March 1 and yesterday Yerevan City Hall officially empowered today’s meeting at Freedom Square. And Serzh Sargsyan made all the evaluations about the “idyll” between the government and ANC complete by yesterday’s statements addressed to ANC. That is to say, in spite of the rhetoric of today’s meeting, induration or mitigation of the evaluations, this stage of the dialogue between ANC and government may be considered finished. Moreover, yesterday’s statement of Serzh Sargsyan about giving appropriate recommendations to the minister of Justice was perceived as an assurance of ANC’s third demand concerning the release of political prisoners. But it is more important what will happen then. ANC has announced that after the fulfillment of their demands presented to the government they are ready to start a dialogue about extraordinary elections (not highlighting whether presidential or parliamentary elections). It’s not excluded that there can even be a dialogue with such agenda. That is to say, ANC and authorities may even officially start such a process, organize public meetings and debates…until the term of regular parliamentary elections will have expired after a year. The delicacy of the situation is that in present conditions of actual cooperation between the government and opposition, the question, whether the parliamentary elections will be regular or special, becomes secondary. As a result, it is important “to strengthen the position of the government in the international arena”, which, as it is known, Levon Ter-Petrosyan promised still at the meeting of March 17.
