"Robert Kocharyan's name must be erased"
Former RA Deputy Defense Minister Vahan Shirkhanyan assured "A1+" that the situation in 1992 was such that first RA President Levon Ter-Petrosyan simply had to be aware of any military operation.
He first referred to the liberation of Shushi. Every year, news spreads that the first RA President was not in Armenia on the day of Shushi's liberation and Shushi's liberation came as a surprise to him.
On May 8, 1992, Levon Ter-Petrosyan was on an official visit to Iran and, according to Shirkhanyan, Ter-Petrosyan took a diplomatic and rational step. Shirkhanyan refused to speak in more detail, mentioning that it would be better if Ter-Petrosyan talked about that himself.
Shirkhanyan touched upon a statement made by one of the members of the ARF who had said, "If Levon was smart, he would seize Nakhichevan."
According to Shirkhanyan, a person with brains would understand that Armenia entering Nakhichevan and an ungovernable detachment entering the territory are totally different. "If the government did that, Armenia could not take that."
Instead, Shirkhanyan suggests taking Robert Kocharyan's name out of the list of RA Presidents as Kyrgyzstan did.
"Robert Kocharyan is the one who cause irreversible damage to this country. We must erase Robert Kocharyan's name," Mr. Shirkhanyan told "A1+".
As far as Turkish-Armenian relations are concerned, Shirkhanyan is pleased to see that at least the ratification of Protocols was suspended. He finds that Armenia must discuss the issue of conflict with Turkey and not relations. According to him, Armenia is in a conflict with Turkey. The conflict began during the years of the Ottoman Empire and in 1988, Turkey overtly participated in the Armenian-Azeri conflict with funding, generals, arms and blockaded Armenia.
The former deputy minister believes that the international community must recognize Turkey as a side in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement.
"If we are placing the issue of normalizing relations with Turkey, we must tell Turkey to dislocate forces from Nakhichevan, recognize the Armenian Genocide, accept the fact that it deprived Armenians of their homeland, dislocate forces from Cyprus and normalize relations with Kurds in Iraq. Only after that may we believe in the Turks. They say one thing and do something else," said Vahan Shirkhanyan.
