Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian reaffirmed his readiness to again “cooperate” with the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun) when he met with the party’s new leadership on Sunday.
Dashnaktsutyun elected its new top decision-making body, the Bureau, during a congress in Nagorno-Karabakh which drew to a close last week. The Bureau is headed by Hagop Der Khatchadurian, a Canadian Armenian, and also comprises 12 other members.
Four of them -- Armen Rustamian, Arsen Hambardzumian, Spartak Seyranian and Giro Manoyan -- are leading members of the pan-Armenian party’s organization in Armenia. They and Der Khatchadurian were received by Pashinian.
“Our government is intent on having a broad and productive cooperation with Dashnaktsutyun,” Pashinian told them at the start of the meeting. “Obviously, we don’t have the same views on many issues but on quite a few other issues the vectors of our perceptions converge.”
“Our aim is to have a strong homeland and Diaspora and I’m sure that there are enough areas where we can cooperate to the benefit of our national priorities,” Der Khatchadurian said for his part.
Pashinian’s press service did not report other details of the meeting.
In a written appeal to the delegates of the Dashnaktsutyun congress publicized last week, Pashinian paid tribute to the party’s 129-year-long history. He said he is ready to cooperate with Dashnaktsutyun and “open to your proposals and criticism.”
The weeklong congress began with an announcement by Dashnaktsutyun’s longtime top leader, Hrant Markarian, that he will not seek reelection to the Bureau. Markarian was reportedly blamed by dissident Dashnaktsutyun figures for the party’s poor showing in the December 2018 parliamentary elections.
Dashnaktsutyun was part of Armenia’s former government ousted during last spring’s “velvet revolution.” It received two ministerial posts in a new government formed by Pashinian in May. The prime minister fired his Dashnaktsutyun-affiliated ministers in October, accusing their party of secretly collaborating with former President Serzh Sarkisian’s Republican Party.
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