Press Review: Ter-Petrossian’s Speech

RFE/RL carries a variety of responses to the speech made by former president Levon Ter-Petrossian at the 2 May congress of political forces supporting his bid to return to power. Papers directly linked to the former president such as Chorrord Ishkhanutyun consider the speech one “delivered not by those who seek power but by those who have come to power” while other more politically neutral papers take a different if apparently contradictory line.

“168 Zham” says that in his Friday speech Levon Ter-Petrosian laid the blame for the bloody suppression of his post-election demonstrations on Robert Kocharian in order to justify his possible dialogue with Serzh Sarkisian and to enable the latter to reciprocate his overtures.

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“Azg” finds the congress “depressing,” saying that Ter-Petrosian and other speakers were in no mood to reckon with the views of Armenians disagreeing with them. “It was a whole assembly of fanatics,” says the paper. “Half [of the participants] were left outside because the auditorium was too small to accommodate all of those wanting to get in. The speeches delivered lacked neither terrible adjectives nor venom, even though they usually complain about the government’s venom. In a word, only they are right, the entire people stands by them, they will win.”