Lragir.am quotes Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as saying that the U.S. has assured Azerbaijan that it will step up efforts to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. “Why isn’t she saying that they gave the same assurances to Armenia’s authorities?” asks the online publication. “It is absolutely possible that the Karabakh problem will be solved for Azerbaijan but remain unsolved for Armenia,” it speculates, suggesting that this is what the so-called Madrid principles are all about.
Arman Melikian, a former Karabakh foreign minister, also criticizes those principles in an interview with “Hayots Ashkhar.” “Unlike the clear-cut demands of the Azerbaijani side, the Armenian side does not clarify its demands and only makes timid claims about its minimum ambitions,” says Melikian. “And yet there is a settlement that would satisfy both sides. One must initiate an intensive resettlement program that can be implemented only if it is stated that the liberated territories can in no case be returned [to Azerbaijan.]”
“Chorrord Ishkhanutyun” agrees with Dashnaktsutyun leaders’ claims that Armenia’s policy towards Turkey has been a failure but faults them for not personally blaming President Serzh Sarkisian for the “disgraceful defeat.” “Secondly, why aren’t they saying openly why Serzh Sarkisian ceded his principled positions?” says the opposition daily. It also claims that such criticism will not be credible as long as Dashnaktsutyun remains in government.
“Zhamanak” condemns Armenia’s police chief Alik Sargsian for saying on Wednesday that supporters of Levon Ter-Petrosian should stop gathering on Yerevan’s Northern Avenue because it was not constructed during the first president’s rule. “For the likes of Sargsian, it is impossible to realize that the citizen is the master of the country on Northern Avenue and anywhere else, even in the police building where Alik Sargsian sits and which wasn’t built by his government,” retorts the paper. “It is therefore about the time he packed up his belongings and moved to Northern Avenue. Especially given the fact that the entire police are now there and it is easier to manage them in that way.”
“It looks like that the state is not fully interested in the existence of a healthy society,” writes “Golos Armenii.” “Symbolic gestures such as the creation of the [presidential] Public Council do not count. In general, the more structures there are containing the word ‘public’ in their names, the deeper the divide between segments, pieces and fragments of the society.”
(Aghasi Yenokian)