RA FIRST PRESIDENT WILL WIN

  Political analyst Stepan Grigoryan says.

–         RA First President has come back from Moscow. In your opinion how are the attitudes of the foreign countries towards RA presidential candidates important and how those attitudes can be decisive for the RA citizens?

–         First of all I should stress that we should learn that we elect the president of our country ourselves. I don’t know details about Ter-Petrosyan’s Moscow visit but as a political analyst, I think that Russia, as a serious country, will not make a mistake this time. We remember what happened to Yushchenko and Sahakashvili when Russia was oriented very late and made a mistake. When they saw the people’s movement, about 150,000 participants in the rally held on February 9, RF began taking certain steps, the result of which was Levon Ter-Petrosyan’s visit to RF and meeting with RF deputy PM Medvedev. The latter showed his attitudes towards Levon Ter-Petrosyan by that action.  I am sure RF made a decision: Levon Ter-Petrosyan is an admissible president for him, the president  who will carry out a normal policy and the strategic partnership which was kicked off just by Ter-Petrosyan, will be continuous.

–         In that case which are the interests of the USA and European countries?

–         I understand that the Europe and USA also follow the political developments of Armenia. I think their orientation in our elections should be expressed by their monitoring principles and objective, not formal approach and diplomatic formulations.

–         Which kind of influence may Levon Ter-Petrosyan or Serge Sargsyan exert on NK conflict settlement and Armenian-Turkish relations if any of them is elected in the post of the president?

–         International community understands very well, I feel from my personal contacts with representatives of different international organizations that if Serge Sargsyan becomes the president of the country, no progress will be made on that issue since he is Kocharyan’s successor. The NK Policy has been to freeze the conflict since 1998; there was no progress in Armenia-Turkish relations. On this occasion Ter-Petrosyan’s orientation is quite different from their orientation and it means that we should take serious steps to improve relations with the neighbor countries. Neither international community nor our neighbors have any expectations from Serge Sargsyan. But there are expectations in case of Ter-Petrosyan.

–         Your remarks on pre-electoral and internal policy developments in this period.

–         I feel sorry that the current authorities use violence in this period. We all understand that it is very difficult to hold ideal elections but what happens nowadays is very anxious. These authorities do not like those whom the people love. This means that current authorities want to prove that they are foreigners in this country.