Naira Zohrabyan Comments on ‘My Step’ Initiative: ‘Decided to Punish Me Before Resigning’

Naira Zohrabyan, a member of the National Assembly from the Prosperous Armenia faction, commented on Facebook regarding the initiative from the ‘My Step’ faction aiming to remove her from the position of chair of the Assembly's Standing Committee on Human Rights Protection and Public Affairs.

According to her, this directive was given to her parliamentary underlings by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, and the MPs from ‘My Step’ are merely executors who will obediently vote and fulfill Pashinyan's orders on Monday.

“Since he is a very small man and thinks that being removed from the position of committee chair will be a terrible tragedy for me, he decided to punish me in his opinion before resigning,” Zohrabyan writes.

The MP notes that the authors of the initiative have clung to her use of the word “dirty,” reminding that one of its synonyms is “unclean.”

“And yes, I assert that all those who justify the surrender of Artsakh to the Turks, those who justify the killing of 5,000 soldiers, those who right now justify the piecemeal surrender of Syunik and tomorrow will justify the surrender of certain areas near Lake Sevan, are, to say the least, unclean people,” Zohrabyan writes.

The opposition MP emphasizes that it is not necessary to be the chair of a committee to work; it is enough to have the trust of the people and a parliamentary mandate.

Zohrabyan announces that she will not participate in the discussion of the draft presented by ‘My Step’ on Monday.

It is worth noting that the ‘My Step’ faction has submitted a draft decision to the National Assembly proposing to terminate the powers of Naira Zohrabyan as the chair of the Assembly’s Human Rights Protection and Public Affairs Permanent Committee. The proposal is justified by Zohrabyan’s Facebook posts, according to the ruling force, she cannot be the chair of a committee centered around the protection of human rights.

The draft aims to be included in the agenda of the extraordinary session of the Assembly scheduled for December 28 at 11:00 a.m. The agenda will be finally approved during the session of the Assembly council convened at 10:00 a.m. on December 28.