Today, all political forces kindly welcome the release of former
minister of defense of the Republic of Nagorno Karabagh (NKR) Samvel
Babayan. The release was probably the only time during the past few
months when both the authorities and the opposition both agreed on the
same issue.
What’s interesting is that a while back, certain political figures were
making allegations on how it was right to sentence Samvel Babayan to
jail. Now all of a sudden they reject the fact that they have said
those things and doubt the fact that Mr. Babayan could have made an
assassination attempt on the president of the NKR Arkadi Ghukasyan.
After the release of Samvel Babayan, people everywhere are starting to
question the reasons for releasing him. “168 hours” weekly did not get
the chance to talk with Ashot Kocharyan, who is the press speaker for
president Robert Kocharyan. So we received no answer to the question
that we had given him via one of the workers of the public
relations department.
Instead of giving an answer, president of the “Azgayin Miabanutyun”
(National Unity) political party Artashes Geghamyan advised us to read
his analysis on the whole thing in the papers, claiming that “the
answer is made clear in the international part of the article.” He did
not want to answer directly, saying the following: “There is no point.
I describe the entire situation of the country’s development in that
analysis. It says a lot.” Vice-president of the political party Alexan
Karapetyan said the following: “The situation of the country is
serious. The authorities remember Samvel Babayan when their situation
is bad. When they were seizing lands, they needed Samvel Babayan, but
when there was no such issue, they no longer felt the need of having
him around. That’s why they put him in jail. Now they released him
because there are many tensions rising in the political arena and they
need his help.”
During our interview with deputy of the Hay Heghapoxakan Dashnaktsutyun
(Armenian Revolutionary Federation-ARF) Alvart Petrosyan, he announced
that he was pleased that “the large investor of our victories” had
finally been granted freedom. “I am also happy that the president of
the NKR, being the open-minded and generous person that he is, found
the strength to forgive Samvel Babayan. I think that the manly factor
comes to play here and I thank Arkadi Ghukasyan for that,” said A.
Petrosyan. As for the “generosity” of A. Ghukasyan towards Samvel
Babayan, the ARF deputy said: “I am not tying that with politics. I
think that the personal, manly criminal acts have been cleared out and
that the state political figure realized that Samvel Babayan needs to
be free. That’s how we should look at all of this.” In the end, A.
Petrosyan added that even though he doesn’t know Samvel Babayan
personally, he has personally “tried to help” him in getting released
from jail. In response to the question of how was the help manifested,
Mr. Petrosyan said: “Through the media and other ways. There was
personal interest. I do not know for sure whether or not he had
participated in the crime, but even if he did, it wouldn’t be bad for
the hero of the Artsakh war.”
According to president of the National Assembly’s “UN” grouping Gurgen
Arsenyan, Samvel Babayan is one of the most key political and military
figures during the bad times that we are currently going through
and he has proven that through his complete devotion. Mr. Arsenyan did
not make any predictions, claiming that at the present there are no
justifications that the release has something to do with future plans:
“We feel that Samvel Babayan is someone who needs to be free in his
country, in his homeland and within the society,” concluded G.
Arsenyan.
P.S. According to facts, the president of the “Azgayin Miabanutyun”
(National Unity) political party Artashes Geghamyan met with former
Minister of Defense of the NKR Samvel Babayan yesterday.