Reporters asked High Commissioner of Diaspora Affairs Zareh Sinanyan about whether or not there are repatriate families. He assured them that there are. “I know individuals and families who have come to live in Armenia. There are families. Do you think there’s something strange here? For example, I returned with my family.” Upon reporters’ observation that he returned because he was given an official position, Sinanyan said, “I was also an official in the US. I had a budget of 900 million USD, and here I’m fighting for a 1.5 million USD budget.”
When asked if he believes it’s possible for there to be widespread repatriation, Sinanyan said, “It’s possible. The precedent is there. But we need to reach that point over the next several years and get rid of all the obstacles. It’s not as if everything changed within one year after the revolution. Either we can grow as a country or we can’t. We have no other alternative; we are working with the vision that we have to have a population of 5 million by 2050. Of course, that will become a reality if we work.”
As far as what some of the obstacles are that prevent Diasporan Armenians from coming and living in Armenia, Sinanyan believes that it all starts with the facial expressions of border guards and customs officers. “Explain to a Diasporan Armenian that the officer who was sitting there is not an Armenian soldier. People come to Armenia and the first thing they see are angry, bitter faces: why? That is the first time that a Diasporan Armenian has any contact with someone in Armenia.”
Sinanyan said that he is establishing a strategy that he did not receive as an inheritance. Speaking about the military operations in Syria, Zareh Sinanyan said that the Turks, according to some information, gave some conditions on who can return and who can’t. Armenians are among those who are not allowed to return. They are not allowed in the territories that are being controlled by Turks. “I did not confirm this, but this is what we were told.”
Read also
When asked about what the purpose of the gathering in the USA was, Sinanyan said that a major portion of American-Armenians saw the leader of their ethnic nation. “Was it not enough to participate, feel good, and be proud to be Armenian?”
Hripsime Jebejyan
