
Published on May 09, 2008
FORMER OPPOSITIONIST GETS PROMISED SECURITY COUNCIL POSITION
- President Serzh Sargsyan signed a decree Sunday appointing his former vocal critic and ex-parliament speaker as Secretary of Armenia’s National Security Council, the presidential press service reported. Artur Baghdasaryan’s appointment to the post was part of the power-sharing deal reached between the former presidential candidate and President-elect Sargsyan hours before the early morning crackdown on the opposition on March 1 and formalized three weeks later as four political parties, including Sargsyan’s Republican Party, Baghdasaryan’s Orinats Yerkir, and two other pro-government parties – Prosperous Armenia and the Armenian Revolutionary Federation – signed an agreement on establishing a political coalition and agreeing to jointly form the country’s government. By another decree Sargsyan confirmed the composition of the 15-member National Security Council, including the country’s top officials, and instructed its newly appointed secretary to submit the statutes of the Council within a month’s period. Baghdasaryan, 39, who resigned as parliament speaker in mid-2006 after falling out with the governing coalition over a number of foreign and domestic policy issues, managed to secure his party’s return to parliament (with eight seats) in last May’s parliamentary elections on a political platform highly critical of the authorities. Baghdasaryan’s opposition stance and criticism of the Sargsyan-led government also won him the third place in the disputed February 19 presidential election. The power-sharing deal struck with Sargsyan amid more-than-weeklong opposition protests calling for an overthrow of the official election outcome also led to Orinats Yerkir gaining two portfolios in Armenia’s newly formed cabinet.

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© AUA
Today in Armenian history- 1847 Summit Meeting of the representatives of the Transcaucasian Armenian community.
- 1847 With the participation of the gentry and commoners, the National, Ecclesiastic, and Supreme Council is created in Constantinople. It is the first step towards the creation of the "Constitution".
- 1859 A Committee, consisting of 5 clergymen and 14 laymen, is struck in Constantinople to write the "Constitution". The Chariman was Rusinian.
- 1945 End of World War Two (known as the "Great Patriotic War" in the USSR).
- 1964 Death of Vahan Totomyants, professor and public figure.
- 1992 Shooshee (Artsakh) is liberated after 71 years of occupation by Azeri Turks.
- 1994 Protocol negotiated in the Artsakh War and signed in Bishkek (Kirgizstan) by the parliamentary speakers of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Artsakh as mediated by Presidents Boris Yeltsin of Russia and Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan. This was the first recognition of Artsakhs distinctiveness as a political and territorial entity in the negotiations. Azerbaijan occupied 750 sq. km. (15%) of Artsakhs territory, while Artsakh occupied 7059 sq. km. (8%) of territory considered to have traditionally been possessed by Azerbaijan.
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