Last week at the checkpoint of Zvartnots airport, French citizen, co-chair of the coordinating council of Armenian organizations in France, and Dashnak Murad Papazyan was not allowed to enter Armenia. It is clear to me who gave that order and what is the reason for it: the Prime Minister does not like Papazyan’s political views. Probably, that incident had an excessively wide reaction not only in Armenia, and our government has a task to justify it. Recently, the government, representatives of the government and unofficial “speakers” put forward some hypotheses. According to one of them, Papazyan is a spy of Turkey or Azerbaijan and has something to do with false alarms about the placement of bombs in our country, as well as the arrogant behavior of Turks near the Genocide Memorial. But in that case, it is not clear why Papazyan is also unwanted in the mentioned countries.
The second version is that he attacked the Prime Minister’s convoy when there was a protest in Paris. The press service of the government gave that clarification. But first, the decision on whether or not to let a foreign citizen into the country is made by the National Security Service, not the government, and the border guard service of the Security Service of the National Security Service should give an explanation. Secondly, if Papazyan attacked any convoy, he would be held accountable in his country for that hooligan act. Thirdly, Papazyan participated in the demonstration in question on June 1, 2021, after which he visited Armenia 4 times. By the way, the opposition also says that the reason for not letting Papazyan to Armenia is that months ago he brought Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo to Armenia, who had a meeting with Artsakh President Arayik Harutyunyan in Goris. According to the version circulated by the opposition, Aliyev and Erdogan “instructed” Pashinyan to punish Papazyan.
I would like to say something on this occasion. It is not important how absurd what the government propagandists say. It is important that this nonsense can be “learned” by the society of Armenia and, I think, not only of Armenia. If people believe that Papazyan was digging the London-Mumbai tunnel, then it will not be a problem to push that hypothesis to the public as well. That’s how politics works.
Politically, I don’t like Dashnaktsutyun’s activity in general, nor the demonstrations abroad against Armenian officials over the decades. But decisions at the state level cannot be made purely based on political taste.
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Aram Abrahamyan
