YEREVAN (RFE/RL)–The opposition Heritage party has accepted President Serzh Sarkisian’s invitation to attend a consultation focusing on the Karabakh issue, the party’s board chairperson Anahit Bakhshian said on Wednesday.
Earlier this week, presidential spokesman Samvel Farmanian explained that in his %u218state of the nation’ address in early October, President Sarkisian announced that he would initiate “subject-matter consultations over issues of strategic importance for Armenia in the time to come as a step aimed at increasing the role of political parties.”
As the first step in this direction, the spokesman’said, Sarkisian invited the leaders of political parties registered in Armenia for upcoming discussions concerning the Nagorno-Karabakh issue in order “to hear their viewpoints on the settlement.”
The leaders of a number of political parties participating in the opposition Armenian National Congress, including Republic, the Liberal Party, the Social-Democratic Hunchak Party, have already declined the president’s invitation, mainly conditioning their refusal by the continuing %u218politically motivated’ imprisonment of numerous opposition activists.
