ARMENIAN OPPOSITIONIST CALLS FOR DECLARING TOP PRO-KREMLIN MEDIA CHIEF ‘PERSONA NON GRATA’
NEWS | 12.06.14 | 13:40
Dmitry Kiselyov, head of the Russian state news agency, Rossiya
Segodnya, during a Wednesday meeting with Armenian lawmakers
E-mail to friend | (0) Comments | Print | Opposition lawmaker Nikol
Pashinyan has urged the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to declare a
leading pro-Russian television host a persona non grata over his
controversial statements regarding the status of the Russian language
in Armenia.
During a meeting with a group of Armenian parliamentarians on
Wednesday, Dmitry Kiselyov, who hosts a prime-time weekly news show on
Russian state TV and is known to be one of the Kremlin mouthpieces,
deplored the declining use of the Russian language and called for
its official status in Armenia.
Kiselyov, who is blacklisted by the European Union for his aggressively
anti-Western stance, in particular in presenting in his Sunday news
show the current events in Ukraine, stressed that it was in Armenia’s
interests to reinstate the use of Russian, as Moscow, he emphasized,
is the guarantor of Armenia’s security.
The remarks particularly angered local opposition groups and civil
activists concerned over the increasing use of foreign languages
in Armenia.
In his statement in the National Assembly on Thursday Pashinyan also
condemned the Armenian lawmakers who were present at the meeting with
Kiselyov but did not duly confront him on the matter.
“I think that Armenia must send a clear message that all foreigners
who show such behavior will see a clear counteraction,” Pashinyan
concluded.
The Armenian Foreign Ministry has not yet reacted to the statements.