“Proposal of 1997 is on the table of negotiations; don’t believe in other tale” (video)
At the Government session hall during the Armenian National Congress (HAK) 2nd (20th) conference with “Levon-Levon” vociferations, standing up in honour and applauding the attendees welcomed the RA First President, HAK leader Levon Ter-Petrosyan. Before his speech he refused to answer questions. He came to the conference with his grandchild Lyusya. He noted in his speech that root of all the evil in the country, injustice, violation of human rights is corruption. He says that default and April events must have sobered the RA authorities to change disastrous strategy over Karabakh issue, but, according to his words, Prime Minister’s behavior was disappointing. He touched upon “nation-army” term, which has been largely used recently, “Putting aside the implementation of “1000 drams” new tax, which is connected with this ideology, I will only touch upon its political contents. For that we should find out what is hidden under such a concept. There were three successful cases of nation-army in the world.” He says that the authors of the Armenian variant of “nation-army” term should answer these questions- which problem it can solve, how many resources are needed for its implementation, “The RA authorities pin great hopes on Diaspora Armenians. It is absolute illusion and self deception. Why should they assist, when the authorities plunder the country? In order to imagine the volumes of the economic plunder by the authorities, I can say, that it would be quite enough for Karabakh having 300 000 population, and the army equipped with the modern armament. If the economic situation wasn’t in disaster, the authorities wouldn’t adopt “1000 drams” shameful law for assisting the families of the deceased servicemen. It damaged the country’s dignity, made us a laughing stock before the whole world.” He states that the impression of “nation-army” term is that it will boost migration and NKR and Armenia will finally left without Armenians, “The regime is intended to carry out it at the expense of nation’s elimination. Later we may have a strong army, but it is a question whether we will have a nation or not. The regime aims at creating a new pre-election brand by this idea; to become a fighter (fidayi) by the whole nation, Istanbul- ocean of blood, no inch of land etc. This idea is from genre of tale. It will blast like the previous balloons. One must not be too clever to understand that it is maintenance of status quo with another wrapping.” Touching upon the NK conflict settlement, Levon Ter-Petrosyan noted that it is important to normalize the relations with Turkey, “Yet our authorities adopted the policy of eternal confrontation which has no prospects. It means for another 18 years continue to oppress the nation leaving nothing from Armenian and the NKR. The conflict settlement is the settlement of relations with Turkey. Solve that issue, other issues will be solved automatically- it is the NKR phase option, after which Turkey’s issue will also be solved. As of now proposal of 1997 is on the table of negotiations. Don’t believe in another tale. I have also grounds to think that even lower status than in 1997 is put on the table of negotiations.” He highlighted that in case of the victory of HAK in elections and having significant representation in the NA, elimination of new armament, normalization of relations with Turkey, the NK conflict settlement must be included in the pre-election project.
