To the question of Aravot.am that Crimea had appealed to all countries’ parliaments with a request to recognize their sovereignty, how you will respond to this request as an RA NA MP, RPA faction MP Khosrov Harutyunyan answered, “The issue of Crimea is both political and politological. As a rule, such problems have political solutions and legal solutions do not work in such cases. It is also evidenced by the fact that we have a similar situation of Kosovo and Nagorno-Karabakh, which declared their independence by referendum, and are almost in the same situations and have the most diversity of reactions by the international community, therefore the problem cannot be legal rather than political.
In any specific case, the international community based on its geopolitical and routine political considerations displays its attitude. Now, our situation is a little different. First, on the one hand, we should state that the referendum in Crimea was not so much a referendum for independence, and it was just about coming out of one country and joining the other country. In this view, though with difficulty, however, parallels are drawn with Karabakh, anyway, at large, it is a manifestation of self-determination, because a part of the community in the same country is deciding to dispose its destiny. One more example I would like to bring, if all the allegations that are related to the question that the referendum could not be failed considering legal, because there was no consent from the Center and if we approach by this standard, we must acknowledge that we can also doubt about the referendum of the former Soviet Union countries.” As worded by Khosrov Harutyunyan, the referendum of the Republic of Armenia held on 21 September 1991 was carried out without the consent of the Centre. According to him, the problem cannot be legal, it is entirely political, and from this point of view, he is convinced that we still need to follow the development of the events. “My sympathy is undoubtedly followed by the legal basis, I welcome this move, because, I repeat, we should also welcome Karabakh people’s self-determination, therefore, we should applaud any act of self-determination, because it generates from our interests. However, we should also agree that, in the interstate global policy, a completely different principle is operating in the relations between the states, and often, the power gives birth to the right, the principle and it hampers and becomes a reason for applying dual standards. For this reason, I think, we will still follow the development of the events. I do not think that Armenia should be the one of the first to welcome it. We need to have good relations with the future Ukraine, because we have a large presence of Armenians there, and we should not forget about them. For Armenians, the situation is a little different, and from this point of view, we need to be prudent and possibly not to hurry, because the pressures are not ruled out.”
Eva HAKOBYAN
