MEETING THE MEDIA: LTP HOLDS FIRST PRESS CONFERENCE SINCE 1997
- Ex-president Levon Ter-Petrosyan stood by his assertion that he is the only real force that can unseat the current regime as he gave a landmark press conference on Friday. The 63-year-old scholar, now running for president, has not taken questions from journalists since September 1997, months before he was forced out of office for his perceived soft stance on conceding Karabakh territory to Azerbaijan. His vacancy created room for the current regime including now his chief rival Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan.
“The past few years have shown that our opposition has lost its role of a political factor that it used to have before. No force or candidate that could beat the current authorities and stop them from reproducing themselves could be seen,” Ter-Petrosyan said.
The former president broke his nearly decade-long silence on September 21 by delivering a speech in which he lashed out at the current administration accusing it of having created “a gangster state”.
In October, Ter-Petrosyan announced his presidential run to thousands of supporters in Yerevan’s Liberty Square and staged two more public rallies in the subsequent months.
Ter-Petrosyan admitted that a former president in general should not reengage in politics or comment on his successors’ activities, but added that it was the situation that had prompted his comeback.
“It is not a matter of conscience; it is a clear political realization, especially considering that this regime exists through a certain fault of mine. After all, it was I who invited these people to Armenia (President Robert Kocharyan and Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan are from Karabakh). Hadn’t I invited them to Armenia, they would not be sitting over us today. I would have been happy never to reengage in politics,” he said.
Ter-Petrosyan insisted that the contested outcome of the 1996 presidential election that he won narrowly over opposition candidate Vazgen Manukyan was a “legal matter”.
“My opponent could not produce any evidence that the election had been rigged. Moreover, my vote had increased by 0.25 percent on the basis of the documents submitted by my rival,” he said. “It is a legal process; it is not an issue to be solved between me and Manukyan.”
Ter-Petrosyan also reacted to criticism from pro-government forces of his election manifesto that he unveiled to the public earlier this week.
“There is not a single provision in it that would lack specific economic and political calculations,” Ter-Petrosyan said.
Commenting on Ter-Petrosyan’s election manifesto earlier this week, Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanian said he was disappointed by its “foreign policy” component.
“After such heavy criticism I expected new thoughts and new ideas,” Oskanian said.
And Armen Ashotyan, of the ruling Republican Party, commented that the “ambitious economic vision and optimism” of the ex-president laid out in his program is based on the successful performance by the Republican-led government.
While refusing to answer this criticism, Ter-Petrosyan promised that he will get his message across to every citizen of Armenia between now and Election Day, February 19.
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- 1921 Drastamat Kanayan (Dro), Supreme Commander of the Armenian Army, together with a group of Armenian officers, is exiled from Armenia. He died in 1956, in the USA.
- 1924 Creation of the "Girk" (book) publishing house in Yerevan, under the direction of Martiros Saryan.
- 1936 The Komitas String Quartet earns the First Place at the USSR Chamber Ensemble Competition.
- 1942 The 390th Armenian division is formed in the Kerch peninsula under Colonel S. Zakyan. The 409th division, reinforced by Armenian soldiers and officers in Armenia, is renamed the Armenian Division under the command of A. Vassilyan.
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