YOU SHOULDN’T RETURN TO POLITICS EVIL – HEARTEDLY
Hrayr Nazaryan

Hayots Ashkharh Daily, Armenia
Nov 1 2007

Yesterday President Robert Kocharyan participated in the opening
ceremony of the single shooting sports-school in Armenia. The
journalists used their chance asking the President to touch upon
certain political issues.

"Mr. Kocharyan wouldn’t you like to respond to the announcements made
by Levon Ter-Petrosyan on October 26?"

"It is very regrettable that Levon Ter-Petrosyan intends to return to
politics evil-heartedly. It was this evil that once ruined Armenian
Pan National Movement. From the point of view of contents the only
idea of the speech was that life was much better during his years of
power, than it is now. In my view people remember what was it like
at that time and now.

But there is a very simple way to evaluate the work – to see what
a person has inherited when he took over the post and what is the
situation like when he hands over his post. It can be related to the
owner of a factory, a farm, the President, and the leading party.

Armenian Pan National Movement came to power in August 1990. At that
time Armenia was one of the most developed industrial Republics in
Soviet Union, with a very developed agriculture, in three four years
Armenia became one of the world’s poorest countries.

Of course, after the collapse of the USSR there should have been
some losses. But in my view these losses shouldn’t exceed 15-20%,
for the first three-four years. In future those losses should have
been supplemented with new programs and investments. This happened
in Baltic countries, in Belarus and partially in Ukraine. In some
years industry was simply ruined in Armenia.

Today we can state the following; in essence they have "received"
a country with normal economy and in 1998 they handed over a ruined
economy to me. A country, which I should repeat was considered by
the international structures as the world’s poorest country. Let’s
compare the situation in 1997 and now. Today’s budget is the same
and even more than the GDP of that time.

This much. Those who have some understanding of the subject should
discuss economy."

"Do you consider any progress possible in the regulation of Karabakh
issue before the presidential elections?"

"No, I don’t. I don’t share the existing optimistic attitude of the
mediators. Though we should confess that there is certain progress
in the negotiation process. I’m not that optimistic to presume that
we can expect specific results before the presidential elections. The
process is on with its positive and negative aspects.

If we look at the bill under discussion, it seems that we have passed
certain path. But if we look at what is happening in Karabakh and
Azerbaijan, the bellicose announcements and approaches, heard from
their leaders, there is an impression that these two processes have
nothing to do with each other. That is why at present there is no
ground for optimism. There is danger and in our internal policy we
must consider this danger.