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  • Ter-Petrosyan's Message: ANC Not To Challenge Eurasian Integration

    TER-PETROSYAN'S MESSAGE: ANC NOT TO CHALLENGE EURASIAN INTEGRATION

    http://armenianow.com/commentary/analysis/52392/armenia_levon_terpetrosyan_eu_customs_union_march1 _rally
    ANALYSIS | 03.03.14 | 11:29

    NAZIK ARMENAKYAN
    ArmeniaNow

    By NAIRA HAYRUMYAN
    ArmeniaNow correspondent

    Armenia's former president and current leader of the opposition
    Armenian National Congress (ANC) Levon Ter-Petrosyan said at a rally
    in Yerevan on March 1 that Armenia's membership in the Customs Union
    is irreversible, while European integration is not possible in the
    foreseeable future.

    In fact, the opposition force led by Ter-Petrosyan will not
    oppose the transfer of part of the sovereign rights of Armenia to
    supranational bodies of the future Eurasian Union. Nor are another two
    non-coalitional forces in the parliament, Prosperous Armenia Party
    (PAP) and ARF Dashnaktsutyun, likely to oppose it. Ter-Petrosyan
    is going to cooperate with them, especially with PAP leader Gagik
    Tsarukyan, whom the ANC previously accused of being involved in
    the violent dispersal of peaceful protests after the presidential
    elections in 2008.

    These forces, along with Heritage, which opposes Armenia's accession
    to the Customs Union, as their political task see a change of power
    in Armenia. However, the ANC, PAP and ARF want to do it in order to
    "maximally use the opportunities of the Customs Union for the benefit
    of [Armenia's] national interests, maximally excluding the negative
    aspects", as Ter-Petrosyan said at the rally.

    "The regime of [President] Serzh Sargsyan, first of all, lacks the
    understanding of national interests to be able to fulfill such a
    mission [to join the CU]. National interests and the Sargsyan regime
    are incompatible concepts. The impression is that we deal with a
    group of foreign invaders or robbers who have seized power by force,"
    Ter-Petrosyan claimed.

    Without challenging the 'general' policy of Sargsyan, the opposition
    leader described the gas contracts signed by Armenia with the Russia
    side as 'vassal', saying it was a mistake. He also called the debt of
    $300 million to Russia accumulated on account of natural gas supplies
    that resulted in the transfer of the remaining 20-percent stake in the
    domestic gas distribution network to Gazprom, a 'secret state crime'.

    Another criminal step by the authorities, according to Ter-Petrosyan,
    is the sale of the Vorotan HPP cascade "at a reduced price, bypassing
    the law and the budget." This was the last step to deprive Armenia
    of its energy independence, "a crime of the century", as he put it.

    At the same time, Ter-Petrosyan did not call for a revolution, on the
    contrary, he said that Armenia "cannot afford a civil war'. "We are
    not so many as the Egyptians and the Ukrainians, we are not a nation
    that has no problem like Karabakh to afford a civil war," he said,
    stressing that the ANC is for a peaceful change of power.

    The leader of the ANC's faction in parliament Levon Zurabyan pointed at
    the way to change the government - the main non-governing political
    forces in the country - the ANC, the PAP, ARF Dashnaktsutyun and
    Heritage - have created a united front against the current government.

    It is not ruled out that in the same format they will raise the issue
    of President Sargsyan's resignation, Zurabyan said.




    From: A. Papazian
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