Ishkhan Saghatelyan on attitudes concerning the opposition's statement proposed regarding relations with Baku and Ankara

One of the leaders of the Resistance Movement, Ishkhan Saghatelyan, said that by June 3rd, all political forces and state institutions should express their opinion towards the opposition's proposal on relations with Baku and Ankara.

According to him, the opposition has formulated the minimum requirements necessary for the existence of the Armenian Karabakh and the statehood of Armenia. “Whoever is against this document is against the Armenian people. If someone is against this document, he is either an agent of another country or serves the interests of the enemy,” Saghatelyan said. According to him, before holding an extraordinary meeting of the National Assembly scheduled for June 3, all political forces, public organisations, intellectuals, the National Academy of Sciences, and all state institutions should decide and express their position on this issue. “From Monday (30 May) at 11:00 we invite everyone to the square, let's go in several directions and at several addresses. Everyone in turn, starting with the deputies of their faction and ending with members of the government, must answer. We must understand who is against the people and who is on their side. We have 5 days to get the full picture. June 3rd is [the] watershed,” he said.

Saghatelyan on the refusal of the ruling power to participate in the NA meeting

Saghatelyan also commented on the refusal of the ruling faction of the parliament to take part in the extraordinary meeting of the National Assembly initiated by the opposition.

"In the matter of holding the meeting and the statement of the National Assembly proposed by the opposition, it is not about blackmail, in which the authorities accuse the opposition, but about the political agenda, which the authorities avoid," Saghatelyan said. "The ruling faction avoids participation in an extraordinary meeting of parliament, as its representatives have nothing to say," he added. “Please note that they do not have any comments on the text of the submitted statement. For them, this is a political dead end, this is a clear confirmation of their political course. From now on, they cannot mislead our society,” Saghatelyan claimed.

He confirmed that the opposition will take part in an extraordinary meeting of parliament scheduled for June 3rd.

Civil Contract: “We will inform whether it will participate in this session or not”

When the parliamentary opposition submits a draft on convening an extraordinary session of the parliament to the National Assembly, the “Civil Contract” faction will state whether it will participate in this session or not. Artur Hovhannisyan, a member of the Civil Contract faction, said to journalists.

The head of the NA Standing Committee on State and Legal Issues Vladimir Vardanyan, answering whether this initiative of the parliamentary opposition can be considered as its return to parliament, noted that participation in parliamentary sessions is the duty of all deputies without exception, including representatives of the parliamentary opposition. As for the opposition's intention to convene an extraordinary NA session, Vardanyan said “an extraordinary session should have an agenda, it should be preceded by a draft statement, which should be put into circulation in accordance with the established procedure, and opposition deputies should participate in the meetings of the commissions. The opposition has only announced its intention to convene an extraordinary session of the parliament so far, this is not yet an agenda," Vardanyan noted.

Prime Minister commented on protest movement in Armenia

We will not interfere with the opposition - it will “wear out” itself, according tothe Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. This was stated at a government hour in parliament by Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, answering a question from a member of the ruling faction Arusyak Julakyan about civil disobedience actions organised by the opposition on the streets of the capital and about when the authorities will restore order in the country.

“In fact, we are talking about congestion and traffic jams in Yerevan. What is happening these days in Yerevan is slightly inferior in its social significance to the collapse of the road on the Tsitsernakaberd highway,” he said. The opposition, according to him, has had the opportunity for more than one month to convey its words to the public by all possible political means. "Usually, such actions are aimed at attracting the public to their ranks and formulating a specific political demand,” Pashinyan said. Meanwhile, according to him, it is already obvious that this did not happen, and all today's actions of the opposition are directed not against the authorities, but against society. He stressed that the political significance of all these actions has already been completely exhausted, and the opposition, creating inconvenience for citizens by its actions, is in fact taking revenge on them for the results of last year's early elections and for the fact that they refused to join them. As for the retaliatory actions of the authorities, according to Pashinyan, the authorities are not going to do anything in response.

Nikol Pashinyan talked about Serzh Sargsyan

“The former authorities represented by Serzh Sargsyan announced the war and resigned,” according to Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, commenting on the opposition's accusations that the current government initiated the war.

"There was only one way to avoid war - to accept all the unacceptable conditions and demands of Azerbaijan for us. The war [started] in April 2016. And Serzh Sargsyan said from this rostrum of the parliament then - do not hope that there will be no war," he underlined. "Nagorno-Karabakh has never been part of independent Azerbaijan and, in the prescribed manner, through a referendum, withdrew from Soviet Azerbaijan," Pashinyan added. "In 2007, Armenia agreed to accept the so-called "Madrid principles" as the basis for resolving the conflict, in which the following thesis… enshrined [that] the status of Nagorno-Karabakh should be determined through a postponed referendum. By accepting these principles, it delegitimised the referendum held on December 10, 1991," Prime Minister stated. "Having fixed that the former residents of Nagorno-Karabakh of Azerbaijani nationality will also participate in this referendum, the Armenian side dealt another blow to the legitimacy of the referendum of December 10, 1991," he concluded.

Saghatelyan: "Pashinyan simply asked Aliyev and his other partners for a timeout"

Opposition protestors seeking Nikol Pashinyan's resignation erected a barricade outside the Armenian presidential palace in central Yerevan, prohibiting personnel from entering or exiting.

"They (the authorities) cannot hide behind the police and security officials for a long time," one of the opposition leaders, deputy parliament speaker Ishkhan Saghatelyan, told reporters at the protest. This was in response to a statement by ruling Civil Contract faction MP Vahagn Aleksanyan, who called the opposition demonstrators' blockade of the Armenian Foreign Ministry "hooliganism."

"Before making such declarations, they must understand that their reign is not forever, and every one of them will answer for their statements and actions sooner or later," Saghatelyan remarked. "They are hooligans who continually drive the country down the path to ruin."

Asked whether they will return to the parliament if they fail to force Pashinyan from office, Ishkhan Saghatelyan noted, "we will return to the parliament with our own agenda." He claims the opposition campaign has disrupted the plans of the Armenian authorities to make concessions to Azerbaijan in the near future. “The meeting in Brussels is a clear proof of that. I am sure that in parallel with the verbal commitments, which were announced, Nikol simply asked Aliyev and his other colleagues for a timeout given the current situation in Armenia, hoping that the tensions would somehow ease or they would be able to stop the campaign. In this sense, the results achieved by the people are obvious," Saghatelyan said. 

The opposition leader says the Turkish-Azerbaijani duo is evidently in a hurry to capitalise on the advantages gained in the 2020 war in Nagorno-Karabakh. "They understand that when they lose Nikol Pashinyan’s rule in Armenia, their plans will not be fulfilled," the opposition figure said. Saghatelyan stressed the need to step up pressure on the government. "Obviously, the people have stood up and there is a public demand to oust the treacherous authorities. The task is to attract all our supporters to the rallies and to give new momentum to the morning protests," he said.