People displaced from the occupied regions of Artsakh due to the 44-day war started a sit-in near the government building of Armenia on July 31. In particular, the sit-in was initiated by the displaced residents of Hadrut.
Levon Hayryan, President of “For the sake of Hadrut” NGO, told reporters that their demands are opening the Berdzor Corridor and recognizing Artsakh’s self-determination. “Our demand is the opening of the Berdzor Corridor, including by military means. Most of our people say: let them give us weapons; let’s go open with firearms. The authorities of Armenia and Artsakh constantly insist that the road’s opening can lead to a state of war. Still, we want to say that it is imperative to open the road, and it is not necessary to avoid opening it even with a fight. If that is the only way, we must do it. And it is not the case that if we open the road today, our issues will be resolved. The only solution to the problem is to recognize Artsakh’s self-determination. If the self-determination of Artsakh is not recognized, Azerbaijan can open the corridor today, close it tomorrow, and declare that it is its territory.
Along with the opening of the corridor, the authorities of Armenia and Artsakh should start working towards the recognition of self-determination,” he said. According to Levon Hayryan, they are staging a sit-in near the RA government building because their primary demand is directed at the RA government.
Read also
“And that demand can be formulated like this: keep the nation and the people, or go home. If you cannot keep it, you are wasting your time and harming the nation. In the future, it will not be without consequences for you. Instead of solving the nation’s issues, they divided it into 12 parts, saying that Artsakh is not Armenia; the Diaspora has nothing to do with us. The main goal of the Armenian government should be to serve the Armenian people in any corner of the world, and these authorities, as we see, want to wash their hands of Artsakh and create problems with the Diaspora. It can be said that the classical Diaspora is almost non-existent,” he added.
Referring to Nikol Pashinyan’s statement that financial support was allocated to Artsakh, Hayryan said: “There used to be a perfect expression in the slang of Yerevan: when someone was given money, but the issue was not about the money, they said: take that money, shave your head, spread yogurt on it.” What did he say, we give money? Did we ask you to provide money to Artsakh? We say: keep Artsakh. We say, your job, government, is not to give money, but to keep the country,” he said.
Roza HOVHANNISYAN
