People showed yellow card - Robert Kocharyan
In his exclusive interview to Azatutyun.am, Armenia’s second President Robert Kocharyan referred to the Karabakh conflict, economic situation, as well as the moral and political atmosphere in the country. Question: How do you assess military and diplomatic developments over Nagorno Karabakh in the context of regional processes? Answer: Today we see that a number of unfavorable factors are accumulating, which gives rise to serious concerns. The disturbance of military balance because of the sale of Russian weapons, unpleasant resolutions and reports of international organizations on the Karabakh issue, formation of a new format of regional cooperation upon the initiative of Azerbaijan, the creation of the North-South Transport Corridor that bypasses Armenia… All these processes with their geopolitical consequences will have a lasting negative impact on the country’s economy and its weight and influence in regional and international affairs, as well as on our resources to have our say in the talks over Karabakh. The authorities [in Armenia] should be able to analyze the causes of all those processes and find a practical solution to counter the existing challenges. By the way, we do not have much time to handle the situation. Question: How would you assess the actions of the Sasna Dzrer group? Answer: Radical activities can be displayed in any country, even in the most democratic ones. Everywhere there will be people who will see the solution to political and social problems in extreme methods. The question is how the society responds to the attempts to resolve internal problems by force I'm more concerned about peoples’ reaction to the recent events. Although there was a victim, a day after the seizure of a police station by the Sasna Dzrer group people perceived the armed group members as rebels who had thrown down the gauntlet to the acting regime. This shows the general moods in public, people’s attitudes towards the authorities and pressure. It also speaks about political, economic and social problems have become chronic in public consciousness. A yellow card was shown to the country’s political system. Let me repeat it once again. I am not speaking about the seizure of the police station, I am speaking about the public reaction to the fact, public support for the group members in the streets and through social networks and glorification of the group. You cannot ignore such a phenomenon and you need to do something about it otherwise you will have a country “sitting on a powder keg.” We need radical reforms, people need to see political competition in the country and the possibility of changes. They want to see legitimate electoral processes. For more details visit here
