By Harut Sassounian,

The Armenian government’s decision to send massive humanitarian aid and dozens of rescuers to Turkey following the powerful earthquake generated much controversy among Armenians.

The Turkish government is not a friend of Armenia or Armenians. Turkey is a mortal enemy having committed the Armenian Genocide in 1915 and continuing its denials until today. More recently, the Turkish military and imported Islamic terrorists supported Azerbaijan during the 2020 Artsakh War, causing the deaths of thousands of Armenian soldiers. Last week, Pres. Recep Tayyip Erdogan acknowledged that Azerbaijan was reciprocating for Turkey’s support during the 2020 war by sending several hundred rescuers to the earthquake zone. Erdogan then added his often-repeated mantra, “Azerbaijan and Turkey are one nation, two states.” Furthermore, a week ago, while Armenia was providing humanitarian aid to Turkey, the Turkish government, in the midst of the disastrous earthquake, found the time to condemn the Mexican Senate for recognizing the Armenian Genocide.

Armenia’s sending 27 rescuers and 100 tons of food, medicines and other relief supplies to Turkey was controversial because the aid was provided not only to an unrepentant enemy and on the heels of the Armenian losses inflicted by Turkey during the 2020 War, but during the current humanitarian crisis in Artsakh due to Azeri blockade of the Lachin Corridor, which is supported by Turkey. While 120,000 Armenians in Artsakh are slowly starving to death being deprived of food and medicines for over 60 days, Armenia’s Prime Minister, President and Speaker of the Parliament, ignoring Armenian sensitivities, announced sending aid to Turkey. They naively insisted that their humanitarian action will help bring peace between Armenia and Turkey.

Naturally, when a major disaster happens anywhere in the world, most countries rush to the rescue of those afflicted. Armenia could not remain indifferent. However, Armenian leaders could have softened the public’s backlash if they had issued a more delicately-worded announcement regarding the aid to Turkey while acknowledging that they are mindful of the plight of Artsakh Armenians due to the blockade of the Lachin Corridor.

It is important that Armenians distinguish between the Turkish government and Turkish people. Armenia and Armenians have a justified demand from the Turkish government for the Armenian losses suffered during the Genocide, but they should not antagonize individual Turks who played no part in the Genocide, since they were not even born at that time. However, if a Turk denies the Genocide and insults the memory of the Armenian martyrs, he or she should be condemned just as the denialist Turkish government.

One of the consequences of the disastrous earthquake in Turkey is the collapse of Erdogan’s already low political rating. There are claims by the Turkish opposition that Erdogan has unfairly dispatched most of the Turkish rescuers to the earthquake regions inhabited by his supporters who had voted for him in the past. He has been subjected to harsh criticism due to the Turkish government’s slow actions to rescue a large number of victims of the earthquake. Tens of thousands of Turkish citizens died due to the collapse of poorly constructed hundreds of high-rise apartment buildings, as a result of Erdogan government’s corrupt practices. Many buildings that were properly constructed did not collapse.

The Presidential election in Turkey is scheduled for May 14, 2023, three months from now. Knowing that his chances of winning re-election fairly is low, Pres. Erdogan will probably delay the election, giving him time to come up with various schemes to boost his rating. Getting re-elected is a must for Erdogan because if he loses the election, he will not just lose the presidency. He risks ending up in jail for the rest of his life because of his and his family’s massive corruption.

Therefore, Erdogan will do everything possible to remain in power. Even though he has no legal right to postpone the election, he will order the judiciary to rule that given the emergency situation in the country, delaying the election is legal and justified.

Erdogan is already making lavish promises to his potential voters. He has promised to millions of homeless Turkish survivors of the earthquake that the government will give them free apartments in one year. Erdogan is forgetting that he has no right to make such a promise because a year from now he may not be the President of Turkey.

Erdogan will also provide large amounts of money to the public to win over their votes. To rebuild the devastated areas of Turkey, foreign countries and international financial institutions will donate billions of dollars which Erdogan will distribute lavishly to the voters to get re-elected.

These days, news sources are circulating information about Samvel Babayan’s alleged appointment as the State Minister of the Republic of Armenia.

In response to inquiries from mass media and public circles, the press service of Samvel Babayan clarified that S. Babayan’s position that the only possibility of preserving Artsakh’s sovereignty is the real balancing of power and the clear separation of constitutional institutions by amending the Constitution is unchanged.

From the point of view of strategic planning, there is no alternative to changing the Constitution of the Republic of Armenia. Under the conditions of the current constitutional regulations, the personnel policy is a transfer of addables, the amount of which does not change.

S. The circulation of information regarding Babayan’s position in the state administration system is the result of the fears of a group of political dwarfs regarding possible internal political developments. For the latter, S. “Babayan’s shadow is even equivalent to their political end, which is why their information trenching and updating of information arsenal” is stated in the message.

Ամբողջական հոդվածը կարող եք կարդալ այս հասցեով՝ : https://hraparak-am.translate.goog/post/2a852132089dacc63b605690c1da9e3d?_x_tr_sl=hy&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=nui,sc

© 2008 – 2021 «Հրապարակ օրաթերթ»

Vakhtang Siradeghyan,

One of the many mistakes of Serzh Sargsyan, the third president of RA, was not appointing Nikol Pashinyan to the position of PR adviser. With that, first of all, the latter’s power-seeking ambitions would be satisfied to a certain extent. And secondly, it would allow Pashinyan to be fully included in the state administration system, making him a part of it.

Due to this, in 2017, it is unlikely that he would go to the parliament, and a year later he would turn into a street leader. And then Artsakh, perceived by him as a burden, was handed over to the enemy at the cost of the lives and health of thousands of young people. And the latter, not being satisfied with that, set his eyes on the RA territories themselves. But it is clear that what was said is from the scope of “ifs”, and the story does not move according to that logic.
And what was the reason for such thoughts to visit you, the reader will ask?

I will answer: in terms of the reduction of the 2022 Armenian index of corruption perception, devoting the time of the regular session of the government almost entirely to the discussion of this issue. What was preceded by his speech on this issue in the National Assembly, that “in all possible ways, we must make progress in all ratings. The fact that we are experiencing even a small setback in international anti-corruption policy ratings is absolutely unacceptable…” Of course, it is not the case that the government was indifferent to ratings during Serzh Sargsyan’s reign. But it wasn’t a policy-level issue, because it wasn’t an ambitious policy goal. What has been available since May 2018 and what he himself admitted during the question and answer session of the National Assembly.

On that day, it was once again revealed that Nikol Pashinyan, who is completing his 5th year as Prime Minister, could not leave the journalistic level. Which, by the way, was recorded a week or two ago by “Hraparak”, when the latter visited state departments in order to evaluate their work performance of the previous year. An employee of one of them shared with the journalist of the newspaper his impression regarding the questions asked by Pashinyan. The same thing happened in the National Assembly. He interpreted the deterioration of Armenia’s position in the international corruption ranking as a result of media publications. And in terms of their response, the emphasis was not on punishing the bureaucrats, but on consistently prosecuting the media with a “civil lawsuit” if the publication is incorrect. During Serzh Sargsyan’s reign, by the way, at the public level, the emphasis was on punishing the officials themselves. To what degree it was implemented is another question. Journalists and mass media were also tried to be persecuted, but there was no question of punishing them consistently. “Hraparak” itself can testify to that.

Probably, the lack of knowledge of the real reasons for the decrease in rating was the reason why Varuzhan Hoktanyan, the expert invited by him to the government meeting, the head of programs of the Transparency International Anti-Corruption Center, presented the process of forming the corruption perception index. In which, naturally, the guiding role of newspaper publications is completely absent. Why, for sure, because after he was appointed as the prime minister, the experts of the center (I say this as a former employee of the center) met with him many times, presenting both the list and the rest of the tools of the anti-corruption fight. But the man sat in the chair of the prime minister for almost five years and did not even rise one step above the journalistic level.

The only thing that worked for him is publicity, which in many cases is related to journalism itself. So, as they say, he is not to be blamed… Especially since he will be blamed for many other issues after losing the prime minister’s seat. Which he is very well aware of, and that’s why he stuck to it with his whole being.

Ամբողջական հոդվածը կարող եք կարդալ այս հասցեով՝ : https://hraparak-am.translate.goog/post/b15cd8e781a40fbefdb57d7df7a2efe1?_x_tr_sl=hy&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=nui,sc

© 2008 – 2021 «Հրապարակ օրաթերթ»