Calls the Hostage Situation ‘the Most Incorrect and Reprehensible Way to Make Much Needed Change in This Country a Reality’.
Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) Parliamentary Faction secretary and ARF Supreme Body of Armenia member Aghvan Vardanyan said the anti-government group that has seized control of a Yerevan police station will not gather broad public support, as they have chosen the “most incorrect and reprehensible” way to bring about needed change to the country.
Speaking to Armenia’s Yerkir news service on July 17, Vardanyan said that violence is not the correct way to solve issues in Armenia. “Issues are not resolved through weapons, violence, hostage-taking, and terrorism. These people have chosen the most incorrect and reprehensible way to make much needed change in this country a reality,” Vardanyan said, adding that this type of radical approach only reduces the possibility of real, qualitative change.
One police officer was killed and two others were wounded on July 17, when members of an Armenian radical opposition group seized and occupied a Yerevan police station. There is an ongoing hostage situation at the station, as members of the armed group demand the release of a group of political prisoners and the resignation of President Serge Sarkisian.
“Unfortunately, the news of the attempted Turkish coup has been replaced with the incident in Armenia,” Vardanyan said, adding that it is the responsibility of law enforcement to diffuse the ongoing hostage situation. “The rest is the responsibility of the law enforcement, which, in my opinion, have not carried out their job well,” Vardanyan said.