YEREVAN (Combined Sources)–Armenia’s media and radical opposition are unnecessarily spreading panic throughout the country about the future of Nagorno-Karabakh, the deputy speaker of Armenia’s National Assembly, Hrayr Karapetyan, said on Friday.
According to Karapetyan, who is a leading member in the Armenian Revolutionary Federation’s parliamentary bloc, there is no reason to panic about a resolution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict that envisages untenable concessions by Armenia in order to reach a quick settlement.
He explained that attempts to stir panic and confusion in the country should be seen as the norm when it comes to the radical opposition and its political strategy.
Creating a sense of hysteria and alarm will have negative consequences on Armenia’s position in the negotiations, as well as the moral and psychological state of the entire nation, he said.
If President Serzh Sarkisian presses ahead with territorial concessions to Azerbaijan, The Armenian Revolutionary Federation will pull out of Armenia’s governing coalition said Karapetyan
“If the actions of the supreme authorities run contrary to our principles–and by that we mean what we consider our national interests in the first instance;then of course we will have no common course to follow with those authorities,” he warned.
Karapetian specifically referred to the status of Nagorno-Karabakh and the future of the surrounding districts fully or partly liberated by Armenia’s during the 1991-1994 war.
A peaceful resolution to the conflict is still possible, he stressed, adding that negotiations have not exhausted themselves.
He said that the recent conflict in Georgia has demonstrated that military force will not solve the conflicts of this region. “If tomorrow Azerbaijan wages a war, it will face problems regarding the seven liberated territories and its territorial integrity, in general, problems which the country cannot even fathom.”
“Azerbaijan’s army is in a grave psychological state. It is disorganized, undisciplined and plagued with corruption,” Karapetyan noted. “No matter how much [Azerbaijan] doubles its [military] budget, they cannot leave Armenia behind;our army is effective.”
