“Zhamanak” says that the Armenian authorities feel powerless in the face of growing spillover effects on Armenia of Russia’s worsening economic troubles. The paper says that President Serzh Sarkisian will be deemed responsible for the consequences if he fails to make sweeping changes in the Armenian government or Central Bank in response to the emergency.
“Chorrord Ishkhanutyun” reports that even after being reprimanded by Vladimir Gasparian, the Armenian police, Levon Yeranosian, the commander of Armenian interior troops, has voiced fresh threats against opposition members. The pro-opposition paper says that Yeranosian thus demonstrated that he “doesn’t give a damn” about the disciplinary action. It says the fact that he has not lost his job means that “Serzh Sarkisian is personally approving of his actions.”
Ararat Zurabian, a pro-Western opposition politician, tells “168 Zham” that Armenia’s forthcoming accession to the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) bodes well for the kind of violence to which several opposition activists were subjected last week. Zurabian also scoffs at leaders of the Armenian National Congress (HAK) who requested urgent meetings with Western diplomats in connection with those attacks. He points that the HAK and its top leader Levon Ter-Petrosian in particular have backed Armenia’s membership in the EEU and repeatedly lambasted Armenian supporters of closer ties with the European Union. Zurabian says that it would have been more logical if they had “run to the Belarusian, Kazakh and Russian embassies and voiced their grievances there.”
“Haykakan Zhamanak” says that the latest attacks on oppositionists “fit into a government conduct” that has been traditional in Armenia for the past two decades. “Some wonder whether such violence is beneficial for the authorities. Of course it is,” writes the paper. It says that politically motivated violence has always strengthened the ruling regimes in Yerevan. The violent attacks also disproved the HAK’s and its opposition allies’ claims that Sarkisian and his government have been seriously weakened by their recent street protests, according to “Haykakan Zhamanak.”
“Hayots Ashkhar” dismisses as a “political show” a boycott of parliament sessions that was announced on Monday by four opposition parties represented in the National Assembly. The pro-government paper accuses them of exploiting last week’s attacks to “score cheap points.” “Sadly, our opposition has almost always acted against common sense,” it says. “The worse the situation in the country is the better for them.
(Hovannes Shoghikian)