“This is a message that we have captured, conquered, occupied and we won and we are not going to lose,” so opines the former member of the Supreme Council, Azat Arshakyan, commenting Russian President Vladimir Putin’s statement during his vatic to Armenia that “Russia is not going to leave the Caucasus, on the contrary, it is trying to strengthen its position in the region.” He believes that Putin should have made the statement using other vocabulary, approximately as follows: “It would be better for his to say that by the will of the Armenian people, at the invitation of the RA authorities, we have come to Caucasus and would leave when the Armenian people ask us. The proper answer would be that Putin has said that Armenian people can not ensure its security, so we friendly and humanely ensure the security of the Armenian people, until it become able to do it independently. In that case, we will leave. However, he said that we have captures, conquered this country and we would not step back from our conquered countries.” To our specification that actually Vladimir Putin did not express properly, Mr. Arshakyan responded the following, “It was not proper, it was a diplomatic, ally’s language, it was the language of the conqueror. He not only told it to us, but to his competitors: Turkey, Iran, and Azerbaijan. He announced everyone that I have conquered Armenia, this is my trophy, my victim, and I will not give my trophy to anyone.”
Tatev HARUTYUNYAN
