ArmInfo.Armenian Parliament Vice-Speaker Ishkhan Saghatelyan, who represents the opposition faction Armenia, has responded to Armenia's first president Levon Ter- Petrosyan.
At a rally by the Resistance Movement on May 5, in response to Ter-Petrosyan's statement that "whoever replaces Nikol Pashinyan - Robert Kocharyan, Serzh Sargsyan or even Ishkhan Saghatelyan - that person will obediently accept the decision forced on Armenia, and the country will make further concessions," Mr Saghatelyan said:
"The Honorable Mr Ter-Petrosyan, you said the same in 1997 and 1998. You said it was impossible and we must make concessions because the entire world was against us. But life showed that after new people came to power we did not make any concessions for twenty years, and Armenia and Artsakh were developing. But after those bearing your ideology came to power, thinking that they must surrender, they did surrender 72% of Artsakh. It is tome for them to leave for us to be able to bring salvation. So no one, including you and Nikol, can force anything on us.
"Secondly, you offer us to sit at the negotiating table with Nikol to find a way out of the situation. Mr Ter- Petrosyan, we have nothing to discuss with him except for one issue on the agenda: his immediate peaceful resignation." In his article published on May 6, Ter-Petrosyan states that the present confrontation weakens Armenia's positions in the forthcoming negotiations and calls on Nikol Pashinyan, Robert Kocharyan and Serzh Sargsyan to start a dialogue.
"The opposition force' objectives remain unclear. Serzh Sargsyan branded Niko Pashinyan a 'defeatist' - which is not the full truth - and others followed suite. In fact, it was Armenia, not Pashinyan, that capitulated. Pashinyan just signed Armenia's capitulation. Therefore, whoever replaces Nikol Pashinyan - Robert Kocharyan, Serzh Sargsyan or even Ishkhan Saghatelyan - that person will obediently accept the decision forced on Armenia. Thus, it is not the person leading Armenia that constitutes the problem," Ter- Petrosyan wrote.
If this simple truth is not accepted and the domestic political turmoil continues, even more painful decisions will be forced on Armenia regardless of who will sign the final document.
"If our intellectuals are really willing to do something for their Homeland, let them force Nikol Pashinyan, Robert Kocharyan, Serzh Sargsyan to sit at the table and find a way out of the domestic political crisis," Ter-Petrosyan wrote.