Artur Aghabekian, who previously served as deputy defense minister, declined to specify the reasons for his resignation, saying only that he finds his continued leadership of the standing committee “not expedient.”
All Dashnaktsutyun members holding senior positions in the executive and legislative branches of government tendered their resignations last week following the party’s decision to leave the coalition in protest against President Serzh Sarkisian’s conciliatory policy toward Turkey. Among them were three government ministers, four deputy ministers and two parliament committee chairmen.
The vice-ministers’ resignations were formally accepted by Prime Minister Tigran Sarkisian on Monday. Three deputy regional governors affiliated with the nationalist party were also relieved of their duties.
President Sarkisian and the three parties remaining in his government offered Dashnaktsutyun last Wednesday to retain the two commitee chairmanships. The offer was accepted.
“It happened so that Dashnaktsutyun decided to leave the coalition and all of us had to tender our resignations,” Aghabekian told RFE/RL. “Then, as a result of political discussions, the coalition offered Dashnaktsutyun to continue to hold those two posts. I could not fail to obey the party’s decision.”
“But my party comrades also knew that while complying with the party’s decision, I remain of the opinion that I cannot occupy the post of chairman of the National Assembly committee on defense,” he said. “And so I tendered my resignation this morning.”
Vahan Hovannisian, the leader of the Dashnaktsutyun faction in the National Assembly, said he respects Aghabekian’s decision. “As any citizen, he is free to express his personal opinion,” Hovannisian told RFE/RL. “And he did obey the party discipline by [initially] withdrawing his resignation. It’s now a personal matter.”
Hovannisian insisted that Aghabekian has no serious disagreements with the party leadership and will remain affiliated with Dashnaktsutyun. “I have no such concerns,” he said.
Aghabekian seemed to confirm that. “I am one of the founders of Dashnaktsutyun in the Republic of Armenia,” he said. “I joined Dashnaktsutyun in 1989 when we were clandestinely fighting against both the Azeris and those Soviet military commanders who tried to break our will. I have remained a Dashnaktsutyun soldier.”
A native of Nagorno-Karabakh, Aghabekian commanded Karabakh Armenian army units during the 1991-1994 war with Azerbaijan and continued to hold top positions in the self-proclaimed republic’s military in the following years, earning the rank of army general. He was appointed as deputy defense minister of Armenia in 2000.
Aghabekian quit that post about two years ago to rejoin Dashnaktsutyun and take part in its campaign for the May 2007 parliamentary elections. He was subsequently elected chairman of the National Assembly’s defense committee. In that capacity, he coordinated Armenia’s growing military ties with NATO and the United States in particular.
According to Hovannisian, Dashnaktsutyun’s governing Supreme Body in Armenia will meet soon to decide who will succeed Aghabekian as committee chairman. “There is nothing else I can say about this issue right now,” he said. Hovannisian himself held the post from 1999-2003.