The interview of the second president Robert Kocharyan with “Liberty” RFE/RL consisted of three sections: Karabakh, economic situation and “Sasna Tsrer”. Kocharyan mainly gave correct estimates to all three questions, which however need to be supplemented a little bit. First of all, there is a tradition in Armenia that the former official, the President in the first place, by giving estimated to the situation, always makes comparisons, “Well, but during my tenure…”
These comparisons speak of a very simple fact that the said official still has ambitions to return to power. It is clear by itself that if I say that now it is bad but in my tenure it was good, this means that if I start ruling again, things will be good again. The point that the first president Levon Ter-Petrosyan no longer says, “Well, during my tenure …”, I think, points out the fact that he personally has no political ambitions anymore.
In this respect, “minor additional comments” to the words of the second president. Yes, in an economic sense, the situation authorities of Armenia have nothing to boast about. But let’s understand what the in-depth cause of this situation is. Economists say that the main reason is the oligarchic structure of the economy, lack of competition, and eventually, the failure of true free market relations. Under the condition of sound economic conjuncture, may be slightly better but this “stance”, by and large, cannot ensure any development. When have these “non-market” relations ultimately “crystallized”? I think, after the year of 1998.
Yes, the attitude by the great portion of the society towards “Sasna Tsrer” is a serious warning to nowadays’ authorities. I would also say that the encouragement of the armed attack on a police regiment is a prove of some “deviation” and illness of our society. But let’s recall since when the idea has sowed into our society that it is not possible to change the government peacefully and through elections, since when people have come to the conclusion that you should achieve something only by force and abstinence. Such thoughts and conclusions, in my opinion, are fundamentally wrong but the “practice” of feeding them has commenced in 1995.
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Finally, the second president notes correctly that he and Heydar Aliyev were close to the point of signing an agreement on Karabakh conflict in Key West. This solution, again Kocharyan reminds quite rightly, assumed the unification of Armenia and Artsakh thru the corridor of Lachin and the handover of the territories outside of former NKAO to Azerbaijan. Simply, we need to recall another detail of the “Key West” version: Armenia was providing a corridor to Azerbaijan near Meghri instead of the corridor of Lachin. Let the experts assess what consequences this can cause.
Aram ABRAHAMYAN
