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Armenian President Asks People To Display Restraint and Respect For

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  • Armenian President Asks People To Display Restraint and Respect For

    ARMENIAN PRESIDENT ASKS PEOPLE TO DISPLAY RESTRAINT AND RESPECT FOR LAW

    YEREVAN, MARCH 2, NOYAN TAPAN. The situation in Yerevan is becoming
    dangerous so the Armenian president as the guarantor of the
    Constitution must make the respective decisions. This statement was
    made at the conference called at midnight by the president of the RA
    Robert Kocharian, who has declared a state of emergency in Yerevan.

    According to him, unauthorized rallies had been held for 9 consecutive
    days in Yerevan, and the contents and manner of these rallies
    finally resulted in clashes with the police. "They did not obey a
    lawful demand of the police - the demand to make a search as there
    was serious information about arms and ammunition". Both sides had
    injured persons during the clash. "The tolerance of the police during
    the election campaign was probably misinterpreted by some candidates,
    more precisely, by a candidate and his team and in fact the political
    process related to the election is no longer a political process,"
    the Armenian president said.

    He underlined that the public order is being disturbed, demonstrators
    exceeded all limits and today shots are fired at the police. "These
    are those arms and grenades we spoke about and demonstrated on
    television. We constantly made an accentuation on them in recent
    weeks". According to the president, 8 policemen were injured during the
    clash, the colonel of the regiment was wounded quite seriously. Damage
    was done to state and private property. "You probably know what the
    demostrators are doing: they are stealing cars and looting shops. All
    of us know the names of the organizers who will be held accountable
    by law," the president said, informing those present that he signed a
    decree on emergency state, and the decree was signed when he learned
    about those 8 injured.

    The decree is aimed at protecting the constitutional order in Armenia
    and ensuring the security of the population. "I appeal to the Armenian
    people with the request to display restraint now, to perceive with
    understanding the steps, which the authorities have to take, and to
    respect the law. I also ask to assist the authorities with establishing
    the order. This proceeds from our interests, interests of the Republic
    of Armenia and each citizen," the president stated.

    In response to the reporters' questions, R. Kocharian said that to
    impose a curfew in a city with a population of one million may cause
    inconvenience to citizens, and for this reason it was decided to limit
    the state of emergency to the provisions stated in the decree. "We
    have tried to cause the minimal inconvenience to citizens not connected
    to those who organize and are involved in disorders".

    In the words of R. Kocharian, "in the current situation when weapons
    are being used against the police troops not armed with guns,
    we have to use the army for establishing order. We are obliged to
    ensure security of our citizens. I am sure that we are able to do
    so". According to him, it was a situation when unarmed demonstrators
    stand behind those who shoot - they appear from behind a car, fire
    at soldiers and then hide behind a car and to fire at them would also
    mean to have victims among unarmed persons. "The impression was that
    they provoked fire to have more victims. We had information about arms
    and ammunition and the statement the police made this morning was a
    substantiated one. Seeing that the so-called national wave is fading
    away without giving any results, Ter-Petrosian and his team decided
    to instigate some actions (we did not know exactly what actions), but
    what is going on today in Yerevan shows that such things were to take
    place. Maybe this would have happened in Opera Square but the police
    intervention has moved this process a bit away from the city center".

    According to the president, maybe the disappointment was caused by
    the fact that almost all the candidates had responded to the prime
    minister's call for coalition cooperation and a serious political
    process had began to form a coalition government in a broader format
    that would be considered as a government of national accord. It
    is quite possible that this fact caused anxiety to the team of
    Ter-Petrosian and the anxiety resulted in such actions.

    R. Kocharian said that among demonstrators were people who would
    come to listen to their candidate for the ideological reasons, while
    others, a lot of them, would come to rallies for other purposes: they
    were aggressive, ready for everything, without any ideological basis,
    easy to control in a bad sense - in terms of manipulation so it was
    possible to instigate them and commit various provocations. "This is
    what we have in Armenia, about which all of you wrote, all papers,
    everybody in all analyses and television meetings said that to display
    such intolerance and conduct such propaganda long is dangerous for the
    country's stability, first of all, for people". There was an election
    campaign, and we had a desire to provide equal opportunities to
    everybody by law and various candidates used it for various purposes".

    "In the current situation, the problem cannot be solved by talks,
    in fact, some act against the authorities not by rallies but by
    arms, shooting, we cannot become a country of mauserists so drastic
    measures must be taken," the president stated, adding "although we had
    information about it, but it seemed to us till the last moment that
    this limit would not be exceeded, I say again that the impression was
    that this coalition process caused anxiety to them and they made an
    attempt to be more active. And those grenades, those arms found at
    Opera Square this morning were only small part of their arms, these
    arms were left by those arrested on the spot but the arms worked in
    another place".
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