Levon Ter-Petrosyan Releases Statement Discussing Pashinyan and Kocharyan

The first president of Armenia, Levon Ter-Petrosyan's spokesperson Arman Musinyan, has published the president's response to comments regarding his statement from yesterday on Facebook.

“First, in the statement from the office of the third president of Armenia, Serzh Sargsyan, it is noted: 'Regarding Levon Ter-Petrosyan's thoughts on the Zurich protocols and the potential treaty for Armenian-Turkish reconciliation, they are unacceptable, and the comparison of these processes is absolutely irrelevant.' Such a claim has nothing to do with Ter-Petrosyan's statements, as he did not express any opinion about the Zurich protocols. He merely stated: 'It is clear that similar projects are also being prepared in the framework of diplomatic communications directed at reconciliation between Armenia and Turkey. In this case, of course, no major surprises are to be expected. The Armenian-Turkish reconciliation agreement will not differ much from the Zurich protocols signed between Davutoğlu and Nalbandian on October 10, 2009.'

Regarding Ter-Petrosyan's remarks about the Zurich protocols, they were expressed in the Armenian National Congress's statement from September 2, 2009. The Congress positively assessed the Zurich protocols while categorically opposing only one point included in them, which pertains to the establishment of a joint commission of Armenian and Turkish historians.

Second, many have concluded from the first president's response that he has thwarted the possibility of dialogue between the authorities and the opposition. They simply do not understand that this process had already been thwarted as a result of Robert Kocharyan's nearly three-hour press conference and Nikol Pashinyan's two-hour interview the following day. The outcomes are, in fact, as follows: Kocharyan’s goal is to overthrow Pashinyan's government at any cost, while Pashinyan's aim is to maintain his power at any cost. In essence, they unanimously declared that the bridges to achieving dialogue have been burned.”