“There is no intention there; it is just about the work style, manner. I have been saying for a long time, since 2006, that the PANM leadership couldn’t work with the people,” Samvel Grigoryan, a former member of the PANM, said during a conversation with www.aravot.am about Levon Ter-Petrossian’s opinion expressed at the PANM congress that the PANM had become a “country club.” He then added: “That is the reason why I have left the executive committee, just because there was no work, and it really made an impression of a bad club. I was the first to tell Levon Ter-Petrossian about that. What has been done now was needed
for the very movement, so that the link with the people was restored.” And Yerjanik Abgaryan, a member of the PANM executive committee, refrained from making comments. Avet Grigoryan, one of the founders of the PANM, in his turn, stressed the fact that the first President of the Republic of Armenia used these words for a particular period, 2000-2007, and added: “Perhaps, that statement was a bit emotional. In that period, because of objective reasons, the activities of the PANM were terribly constrained. And today’s steps are taken dictated by today’s political reality. The goal is to attach more importance to the PANM, uniting two powerful political forces, the PANM and the part of the Congress that has been nonpartisan so far. And every comment on the speech of the first President of the Republic of Armenia should be based first of all on carefully reading or listening to it. It is just not right to make comments on ideas taken out of context. However, we are used to that, unfortunately, it has become the norm, and fighting against it will be like fighting against windmills.” To sum up the conversation, Mr. Grigoryan stated: “The discussions on all this makes an impression that they want to defend the first president against himself, or the PANM against the PANM.”
Tatev HARUTYUNYAN
