Heritage and HAK cannot cooperate on Karabakh issue
Though Heritage Party Chairman Raffi Hovannisian wants to see a female president in Armenia, he is going to stand for presidency.
"It is too early to make predictions regarding possible candidates for the next presidential election. Anyway, I would like to mention that Armenia has a great intellectual potential among female representatives and the fact cannot be ignored or excluded," Mr. Hovannisian told A1+.
Mr. Hovannisian said that he hoped the opposition would be able to come up with a united candidate for the election with an ideological program.
"If the candidates run in the elections separately, they will achieve no results and the public will again be disappointed with the election outcome," he said.
Raffi Hovannisian refrained from giving names. He only noted that "Heritage is one of the numerous keys capable of leading the country to electoral triumph."
Heritage Vice-Chairman Ruben Hakobyan says extraordinary elections are a must in the country.
"To change the situation radically, the country needs new authorities," he said.
Over the past two years the authorities were unable to eliminate the evil hindering the country's development. "First of all I mean the deeply-rooted corruption, the severest evil harming the backbone of our state."
Referring to the possible cooperation of Heritage and Armenian National Congress (HAK), Ruben Hakobyan said, "The Armenian National Congress, we are going to start negotiations with, suggests starting from the year of 1998. But I must say that the chain of the county's misfortunes started much earlier. In 1995, I witnessed larges-scale election fraud. In 1996, I witnessed the birth of a sniper who latter became a menacing monster and killed ten people on March 1, 2008.
Raffi Hovannisian added that cooperation should not be based on preconditions. Heritage is ready to start a dialogue with the authorities and opposition depending on the urgency of issues.
Ruben Hakobyan noted that the opposition cannot always express a unilateral opinion on all issues. He reiterated that Levon Ter-Petrosyan's stance on the Karabakh issue is unaltered and Heritage cannot cooperate with HAK on that issue.
"Armenia is to recognize NKR independence"
"Our biggest shortcoming is that Armenia was to recognize Karabakh's independence before the proclamation of Kosovo independence," Mr. Hovannisian said when commenting on the recent ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) over the legality of the declaration of independence of Kosovo.
"Armenia was to recognize NKR independence in 1992. It was necessary after the ceasefire of 1994 that Armenia express its attitude to the NKR. We won the war with joint efforts but today we are losing peace."
