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 YEREVAN
(RFE/RL)—The Armenian Revolutionary Federation said on Wednesday
that it will defy a government ban and again rally supporters in
Yerevan this week in protest against the controversial
Turkish-Armenian agreements penned in Switzerland on October 10
and scheduled to be ratified by the Armenian Parliament.
In accordance with Armenia’s law on public
gatherings, the ARF notified the municipal authorities last week
about its intention to hold the rally in Charles Aznavour square
in downtown Yerevan on Friday. The municipality said on Tuesday
that it cannot be authorized because another event has already
been scheduled to take place in the same place and on the same
day.
ARF Bureau member and head of the party’s
parliamentary bloc, Vahan Hovannesian, rejected the explanation
and said the authorities failed to offer an alternative venue
for the protest, as is required by the law. “They only verbally
informed us that some other, children’s event is to take place
there at the same time,” he said. “And when we said that we can
hold it elsewhere, they said, ‘We will organize an event there
too.’”
Hovannesian claimed that the authorities are
thus keen to prevent the ARF rally at any cost. “We cannot
reckon with such a desire,” he told a news conference.
More than 60,000 people marched through the
city center last Friday to condemn the two Turkish-Armenian
protocols that were signed the next day.
Hovannesian also criticized Sarkisian for
accepting Turkish President Abdullah Gul’s invitation to visit
Turkey for Wednesday’s soccer game between the two countries’
national teams. He said the Turkish side has failed to meet
Sarkisian’s earlier conditions for the trip.
The Armenian president said throughout this
summer that he will accept travel to Turkey if Ankara lifts its
16-year economic blockade of Armenia or is at least “on the
verge” of doing that.
The ARF leader insisted that the reopening of
the Turkish-Armenian border, envisaged by one of the signed
protocols, is still not on the cards, citing statements to that
effect made by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and other
Turkish leaders.
“If [the Armenian authorities] are ready to
make other concessions to make border opening imminent and
inevitable, then this is the subject of a separate
conversation,” said Hovannesian. “But I think the conditions set
by the president were not satisfied.”
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