SERZH SARGSYAN AND ARTHUR BAGHDASARYAN GAVE INTERVIEW
On 17 March president elect Serzh Sargsyan and the chairman of Country of Laws party Arthur Baghdasaryan gave an interview to Washington Post. The Armenian officials particularly talked about the presidential elections, their post developments and the coalition creation.
“After the presidential elections Ter-Petrosyan resorted to a dangerous and profoundly undemocratic form of populism. He radicalized a part of the opposition and guided it into a standoff with the state, which led to the March 1 riots in which armed demonstrators confronted police,” is sated in the interview. According to Armenian officials the pro-government and supporters of the opposition were conscious that the state of emergency was foreseen.
The two former competitors in the presidential election said that they were united to end the current crisis and put Armenia back on track. “Cooperation is the way forward. The political alliance we have created, between the president-elect and the Rule of Law Party, is an effort to do things democratically and through compromise. Between us, we represent 70 percent of the votes of the Armenian people. This is a serious and solid mandate. On this basis, we will pursue ambitious but realistic reforms that will strengthen our democracy and our nation's socioeconomic progress. In this moment of crisis, we have agreed to assume responsibility for joint governance.”
The officials mentioned that violence has no place in democracy. Therefore, they were asking those who still promote instability on the streets to join political dialogue and to help guide the country toward prosperity. “Armenia faces a series of external challenges that we hope to address. First among them is the long-standing conflict over who should control the Nagorno-Karabakh region between our country and Azerbaijan; second is the normalization of relations with Turkey. Only a government with wide popular support, not one created through street violence, can successfully resolve these problems. We will also continue to ask the international community to recognize the Armenian genocide, though this issue should not prevent us from moving forward.”