Gagik Tsarukyan Met with Mr. Vanetsyan Multiple Times in the Same Park, Says Alen Simonyan

What is Gagik Tsarukyan unwilling to back down from, and who is impeding his fight? Let the criminal case continue, and if he believes it is politically correct to fight, then he should fight. This was stated today, June 15, during a meeting with reporters in the National Assembly by Alen Simonyan, Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly and a member of the "My Step" faction, responding to the statement by the leader of the Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK) that he is facing political persecution and will not back down from his struggle.

Simonyan noted that these criminal cases were initiated much earlier than Tsarukyan declared in his park that the government should completely step down. “In that very park, where he had previously held meetings, he made statements regarding the 100 percent change of power. The timeline cannot be falsified; these are facts. The document that emerged in circulation yesterday, to my knowledge, was found much earlier and emerged within the framework of another criminal case, not related to Mr. Tsarukyan's case,” said Alen Simonyan.

“Do you think we learned about Gagik Tsarukyan's meetings only after his statement? You are gravely mistaken. Mr. Tsarukyan has met with Mr. Vanetsyan multiple times in the same park, and Mr. Vanetsyan did not deny that either,” said Simonyan.

When asked if he implied that Vanetsyan is behind Tsarukyan's statements, the Deputy Speaker responded, “I am not implying such a thing; I am saying that we were aware beforehand that they were meeting, and we did not need Tsarukyan to make a statement for us to know.”

He assured that these meetings do not concern the authorities. “What concerns the government of Armenia and gives rise to reflection is only the communication with the citizens of Armenia, and who meets whom in which park, what old political corpses they try to resurrect, and what they will attempt to do, is secondary. For us, cooperation with the citizens of Armenia is what matters most.”