“I guess that in the near future there will be no solution to Karabakh conflict”, announced former Defence Minister Vagharshak Harutiunyan, who gave a talk on “The security issues of Armenian states”, during the third conference of Armenian parties, held on June 16-18 in Stepanakert. Expressing confidence that there will be no change in in the near future, Mr. Harutiunyan added, “The only problem that we must solve the problem of emigration which seriously affects our fighting capacity”.
Another speaker, former head of the State National Security Department David Shahnazaryan, who presented the “Our security and global security threats” report, stated, “I consider the state of Armenia’s economy the biggest challenge and threat”. And turning to the ruling majority, David Shahnazaryan argued that economic growth should not be less than 7-8 percent.
Turning to military security, David Shahnazaryan said that what was done on the frontline last year, should have been done a long time ago, “Every time I see such changes, I get happy. But whenever and whoever considers the changes enough, that person must resign”. Especially a participant of the conference, Shushan Petrosyan liked the last statement.
David Shahnazaryan also appreciated the initiative of the Minister of Defence of Armenia, “Reviving the concept of nation-army I believe is a successful attempt. Although, in my opinion, we have been nation-army since 1988”.
Conference participants had differing views on the possibility of resumption of military actions. David Shahnazaryan believes, “The probability of a large-scale war has slightly decreased in recent months”. In this context, he spoke about the complexities created in Russia-Azerbaijan relations: Russia wants to sign a document on agreed gas export policy, and Azerbaijan cannot go for that.
The head of “Yelq” faction Nikol Pashinyan stated in his speech, “A large-scale war is unavoidable. We are busy waiting for news about new victims”.
Nikol Pashinyan stressed that Armenia does not have an adequate plan for responding to this situation, “We should think about switching to a strategy of preventive actions”. He also mentioned, “What is happening today is a large-scale war. If we are unable to pass on preventive actions as quickly as possible, we do not have a response to every movement of techniques, then we are on a very bad way”.
Former NA deputy Tevan Poghosyan also talked about plans, and learned lessons, according to whom, the gaps in the budget and civil defense should be examined. Recalling that last year April operations were followed by panic, he asked, “Have we worked on information security, not to have such panic again? We haven’t”.
It was remarkable that while speaking on the activities of the Diaspora, David Shahnazaryan asked why no groups have been created in the US state congresses to recognize the Republic of Artsakh. He said this while looking at the representative of ARF Supreme Body Aghvan Vardanyan. Let us remind, that it was during David Shahnazaryan’s tenure that functioning of the ARF was suspended.
