Aram Karapetyan about the Russian support
– You used to be an active participant in the Armenian National Congress (ANC) rallies – a rally is assigned for Friday, will you participate or your approach has changed?
– I think I will go to the rally this Friday.
– You said it very significantly.
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– Yes, because I haven’t been to one or two previous rallies and as I understand it, the legal and political motives for Serzh Sargsyan’s resignation will be put forward at that rally. As I myself am also a fundamental oppositionist, I want to hear their notion on what that means and how they are going to reach it.
– Before ANC has presented its approach to that issue, do you think that impeachment is possible?
– I think everything is possible theoretically – in practice I don’t think it is possible at the moment, these days.
– The New Times Party (NTP) had also supported the national movement, afterwards despite the fact that you didn’t become a member of ANC, nevertheless, you were an active participant in the processes aiming at snap elections. Now ANC states that regular elections may also be a solution to the problem. Has it disappointed your fellow party members?
– ANC is engaged in the political struggle and it means that one may say one thing one day, try to reach that, if it fails, give an explanation and do the second thing. Unfortunately, it is very perceptible at the end of the 20th century and at the beginning of the 21st century.
– Is there a possibility of snap elections or perhaps they are ruled out?
– I don’t rule out the possibility of snap elections only in one case, if Serzh Sargsyan, as Mikheil Saakashvili, will seize the opportunity when the people are busy preparing for the New Year and hand in his resignation. I believe it was on November 7, 2007, that the suppression happened, afterwards Saakashvili handed in his resignation, hold an election on the first ten days of the next January and became a legitimate president. If that governmental project is not carried out, the possibilities of snap elections now amount to nothing. There is no political moment, the anger of the people has not been sparked, the socio-economic conditions are not that bad – Armenia is going for a regular election that will have an impact on the people in the moral sense – elections, nothing else… I don’t say that snap elections are not needed, furthermore, I am for holding snap elections as soon as possible, changing everything as soon as possible. However, if it is to become a new scenario of legitimizing Serzh Sargsyan, I am absolutely against that kind of scenario.
– NTP have been quite passive lately, you have even held the meeting of the party activists sort of behind closed doors. Why so?
– We are very seriously and silently preparing for our work this time. I can say that we will be very active in the short-run. Many things will be new. If we face the truth, Nikol Pashinyan and I were the people who managed to make the political stage active more than the others during the 2007 election. We haven’t denied the abyss of struggle, on the contrary, we have understood this time that we should better prepare and run for the election more prepared. We are doing that very silently. We have a lot of things to say and do.
– Mr. Karapetyan, you warn that you are preparing for the elections very seriously, and you speak of Armenia’s Eurasian Union membership at the same time, you are a pro-Russian politician added to that. Will you be supported financially or politically by Russia?
– I have never longed for the support of anybody. I don’t need that kind of support and I don’t think that anyone has doubted either my financial or my political abilities so far. I will tell you frankly and clearly I will be very thankful to all capitals, if they do not disturb me. If you remember, all the documentation, with which I cannot be registered as a presidential candidate in the Republic of Armenia, have been brought from Moscow. It directly indicates that we have never been supported.
As for the Eurasian Union, our program has not changed for 8 years and there is a certain item written on December 2, 2003. Vladimir Putin’s article about the Eurasian Union just coincided in time with the other developments. Therefore, we do not connect those processes. The process of becoming a member of the Eurasian Union is much more serious, than support during an election. Yes, I am for having closer relations with Russia, but not for becoming an outpost – I am for normal relations of allies. Who says that Russia needs that – we need it first and foremost.
– Many pro-Russian forces welcomed your public statement about the Eurasian Union membership, as it is also a period of elections in the short-run, don’t you prepare for starting negotiations on alliance?
– You are right, but I will wait until everyone expresses his idea. After the issues of orientation are solved. It is not the only issue – there are others that can lead to entering into an ideological and political alliance. We are ready to run for the elections with all the resources, but we will negotiate with pleasure on entering into political alliances.
NELLY GRIGORYAN
