Azatutyun.am wrote:
Zhirayr Sefilian, a jailed opposition leader, on Tuesday urged the Armenian authorities to negotiate with him an end to their continuing standoff with armed members of his Founding Parliament movement occupying a police station in Yerevan.
Sefilian appealed to the authorities the day after his lawyer, Ara Zakarian, said that he is ready to stop demanding President Serzh Sarkisian’s resignation “for the moment.”
“We have a clear political program of peacefully resolving the problem,” Sefilian said in a statement sent to RFE/RL’s Armenian’s service (Azatutyun.am) through Zakarian.
“It is evident that the delay in the launch of a negotiation process is leading to an escalation of the situation, which could result in more clashes, injuries and casualties,” he warned.
Vitaly Balasanian, a Nagorno-Karabakh politician who has mediated between the authorities and the Founding Parliament gunmen, said on Sunday that Sarkisian is ready to meet Sefilian if the gunmen holed up in the police station lay down their arms. Balasanian also claimed that Sefilian no longer backs the gunmen’s key demand: Sarkisian’s resignation.