ADOPTION OF LAW ON DUAL CITIZENSHIP TO RAISE GREATLY ARMENIA’s INFLUENCE IN REGION
YEREVAN, JUNE 4. ARMINFO. Number of Armenia’s citizens will total 5
mln after adopting a law on dual citizenship. It will raise greatly
country’s image in the region, strengthen ties of Armenian Diaspora
with their historical Motherland, and provide investment flows. Such
was a leitmotif of reporters on “About dual citizenship” seminar
organized by the ARFD party.
In particular, secretary of the ARFD faction Hrayr Karapetyan stated:
“If Azerbaijan has oil, Georgia has a sea, then Armenia has a powerful
Diaspora”. Issues of both military service and electoral right of
persons with dual citizenship, as well as mechanisms of defining
national identity will be the main topics of forthcoming June 4
inner-party discussions. “Both diplomats and lawyers and ethnographers
should be engaged in issues of defining national identity”, stated
a member of the Moscow lawyers association Rouben Kirakossyan in an
interview to ARMINFO.
He also noted that the 1997 European Convention on citizenship
creates a favorable background for law’s using. In particular, in
case of absence of general conscription in a country of residence,
the Convention gives a right to persons with dual citizenship to
perform military service in the historical Motherland. A problem of
cultural identity will be more polemic as some ARFD representatives
offer to check certificates of baptism and ending of surnames in
a citizen’s passport before giving the dual citizenship. However,
session’s participants unambiguously mentioned the inadmissibility
of the replacement of “citizen” term to “Armenian” in the Constitution.
“Turkey is the only country with such a Constitution and it is per se
a racist country”, stressed a representative of “HayDat” committee’s
Teheran branch Karen Khanlaryan. He also noted the necessity of
defining a separate provision in the Constitution about an order of
taking Armenia’s citizenship by foreigners-non-Armenians. The ARFD
party – one of the three parliamentary parties forming the ruling
coalition – is the more presented in Armenian Diaspora. -r-
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress