“It is not the first time that the authorities have adopted such a decision. They did so during the Armenian-Turkish protocols. We slept – woke up, and saw how they decided”, – so interpreted the vice Chairman of the “Heritage” party Armen Martirosyan in a conversation with Aravot.am referring to the outcomes of Sargsyan-Putin. He said,- “Until now, when the of the European delegation were here, including the de facto president after flawed elections went to Europe for a few times, enjoyed also their reception, promised to sign the Association Agreement. Now he came, and after going to Russia, he said that we are going to join the Customs Union. I will stay apart from giving the final assessment because it is possible that a short while later, after meeting with this high-ranking European officials, such statement is possible to sound again that we will be signing the Association Agreement. I think I still have time and the final word will be known in the near future. In any case, if we are going to join the Customs Union, I think we would have a system of governance that we had so far.”
To our question as to what answer Serzh Sargsyan is going to give to the European institutions after his statement, he said,- “He does not need to give any response to the European institutions. When the opposition was repeatedly warning that there cannot be progress with such authorities, and leadership elected without democratic elections, they did not believe. If, indeed, this is what happens, all we said will be true. Even disregarding many things did not help. The Europeans should draw conclusions by themselves.” Serzh Sargsyan was talking about “and-and”. As observed by Armen Martirosyan, “That and-and could not be successful because the European high-ranking officials, and the RF officials have already talking about it that it is not technically possible. These are different regimes, and as such, it is impossible to compare these two regimes in one territory, in one state. It was logical that the two sides were suggesting “or-or”. The attempts of the Armenian side to avoid the question and set up a new agenda would not happen.”
Referring to the expected pressure by RF, if Armenia had signed the Association Agreement, said Armen Martirosyan that as in the case of Ukraine, there would be pressures on Armenia, as well, but these pressures were going to be short-term. “We do not have any hostile problems or relations with the Russians, and it could not be long-term. Influencing by economic factors, it could not have so big impact. At least it could raise the price in gas, however, we do have an alternative to the Iranian gas. In any case, I think, we could have withstood those pressures.” To our questions whether the opposition will not raise a new wave of protest after such decision of Serzh Sargsyan because the fate of the country, the future development depends on it, Armen Martirosyan said that it was too early to speak about it. “It’s hard to say how different parts of the opposition treat it. However, after the decision to join the Customs Union, we would have the same corrupt, rotten system of governance. Nothing will change.”
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