Today, on August 22, the representative of the ARF Supreme Body of Armenia, and Member of Parliament from the “Hayastan” faction, Ishkhan Saghatelyan gave an interview to the “Yerkir Media”, “H2” and “5th Channel” TV stations.
According to Saghatelyan, the Resistance movement’s results thus far can be assessed by the international response it has received.
“The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkey has three times referred to the ‘Resistance’ movement in various interviews and statements and the activities of the Armenian opposition, mainly in this context, that there are revanchist forces in Armenia who prevent Nikol Pashinyan from establishing peace in the region, that is, serving the interests of Azerbaijan and Turkey with this false agenda,” Saghatelyan said during the interview.
“The President of Azerbaijan and the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan have made statements about this. The most striking example is the statement of the head of the security service of Azerbaijan, which directly threatened the Armenian opposition. The statement of the former US ambassador to Azerbaijan was a very important assessment of the movement, that is, at least in this sense, we have shown the whole world that there is a process, we have disrupted the schedule of handing over the country. This disaster that we have these days was planned earlier and on a larger scale. Therefore, in this sense, the achievements of the Resistance movement are evident. We have not yet achieved our main goal – to remove the government of the day and prevent this process, but I am sure that by evaluating our omissions and mistakes and making the right conclusions, it is possible to achieve the removal of these authorities. The important thing is to not despair, not to back down,” added Saghatelyan
Referring to the movement’s shortcomings, and criticisms that they did not have a program or a candidate for prime minister, Saghatelyan said:
“We talked about our plans very clearly and not once but many times. This struggle was not an election struggle for us… we have said that the country, the statehood is in danger. In this situation, when we have existential problems, turning this struggle into a pre-election struggle, and coming up with such detailed programs or talking about social issues, when the existence of statehood in general is under question, we were not guided by that principle.”
Then, Saghatelyan singled out the movement’s biggest and most important mistakes:
“We have to record that we have not yet been able to fully convey the threats to our country to our national population. In other words, the fake, fabricated peace agenda brought by Nikol, which is actually an agenda of new chaos, capitulation, and a new war, was more attractive to people than the agenda of the fight we presented. Secondly, our struggle for the sake of Artsakh was perceived as a struggle for power, a struggle for the return of former authorities, in fact, it was our omission, which we were not able to deliver… The authorities of the Republic of Armenia in cooperation with the authorities of Azerbaijan present our movement to the international community as a revanchist struggle and my last visit to Europe is a clear proof of this, that there are a lot of incorrect international perceptions about our movement as well. And last but not least, we did not enable the participants of our movement, to make those who think like us, supporters, participants in the daily struggle. We should be able to solve these problems and enter the fight in a more organized way in the next stage of the struggle. And most importantly, we must get an organized army from our supporters. In order to remove this government by street means, high-quality organization is necessary.”
“There are two ways to remove this government: resignation and removal through the parliament. Any of these two options will succeed only through a widespread popular uprising, because these are anti-Armenian authorities,” Saghatelyan said.
“If we don’t have the manifestation of a popular uprising, neither the resignation nor the removal will work. We need to mature the situation and only then enter into that process. Removal is on our agenda, we will enter that process when we have favorable conditions.”
Saghatelyan reiterated his thoughts about going to the parliament: “Nothing has changed in our previous statement and decisions.”
