Colonel Ashot Simonyan, the Cossack ataman of the region of Shirak, talking about the speculations that Vardan Ghukasyan, the mayor of Gyumri, had asked the Cossack organization to join the signature collecting in support of him and the latter had been passive, since the head of the organization was Samvel Balasanyan’s relative, said that there had been no such thing. “Vardan Ghukasyan has not asked such a thing. If he had asked, he would have asked me, I am the head of the organization, but he hasn’t,” Simonyan said. We inquired of the latter what position the organization would have taken, if Vardan Ghukasyan had asked that. “He has done so many things for our organization that if he had asked, of course… what is a signature collecting, this is an NGO, I cannot force people. It is a free
choice – everyone would have gone and made his choice considering the good things he had done,” colonel Simonyan said.
He noted that since the superior organization had not given any instructions to their organization, he had no right to do arbitrary things.
As for the relationship with Balasanyan, our interlocutor opposed, “Samvel Balasanyan is among my kith and kin. People know me in this town, I know everyone, particularly such people and they know me… if they haven’t asked me and I haven’t been passive, how can one say something like that?”
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Nelly GRIGORYAN
