SARGIS HATSPANIAN COMPARES ROBERT KOCHARYAN TO 1915 YOUNG TURKS
hetq
10:52, December 3, 2011
Yesterday, Sargis Hatspanyan, a French citizen and veteran of the
Artsakh War, who has been fighting to obtain RA citizenship, compared
former Armenian President Robert Kocharyan to the Young Turks.
“I have lived in Armenia for the past 22 years and have put down roots
here,” said Hatspanyan, a native of Turkey. “Now they are pulling up
those roots by not granting me residency status”
Hatspanyan recounted that while serving time in an Armenian prison
after being found guilty of false denunciation, he read a book stating
that in 1915 the Young Turks only gave the Armenians of Kharberd five
days before exiling them.
“The order handed down by Kocharyan, in the aftermath of the March 1
events, to banish me from Armenia sounds a lot like the Young Turks’
order. I am from a generation that was exiled in 1915. How can those
who have tried to exile me twice from Armenia be called Armenians? Is
it possible for anyone to debase themselves to the level of the Young
Turks?” noted Hatspanyan.
The aravot.am news website contacted Robert Kocharyan’s press secretary
Viktor Soghomonyants for comment. He never answered their telephone
calls.
Hatspanyan was a bit embarrassed to confess that, from a legal
perspective, it’s his son that has kept him in Armenia.
“My son goes around school boasting that ‘I am keeping my father
here’. International law states that you cannot exile a person whose
children are still minors. My son is eight and I don;t want him to
grow up.”