Pativ Unem initiated hearings in Armenia’s National Assembly on the matter on Monday. The hearings were attended by the other opposition faction, Hayastan, and representatives of a number of extra-parliamentary parties. Members of Armenia’s ruling Civil Contract party did not attend the event.
Pativ Unem’s Hayk Mamijanian, who presented the amendment, said that they suggested that the prime minister and the foreign minister two or three times a year report to lawmakers behind closed doors about the security situation in the country and negotiation processes on foreign affairs.
“We don’t want a situation in which anyone could dare [tell lawmakers] that they are negotiating around whatever they want,” said Mamijanian in an apparent reference to Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s remarks about Armenian-Azerbaijan talks a few months before the September-November 2020 war in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Mamijanian said that provisions under which lawmakers can summon foreign-policy makers to report on international negotiations are practiced in a number of countries.
Pativ Unem faction leader Artur Vanetsian highlighted the importance of adopting the bill in the light of the recent developments, in which Azerbaijan recently presented a five-point proposal on starting peace talks with Armenia and Armenia asked international mediators to organize negotiations with Azerbaijan.
“Azerbaijan is putting forward new principles, which, according to the opposition, are principles of renouncing Artsakh [Nagorno-Karabakh – red.]. And the negotiations are being conducted by the government whose policy has already led Artsakh and Armenia to the current disastrous state,” Vanetsian said, adding that the amendment they propose will help bring in a new element to the government’s accountability.
Former opposition lawmaker Naira Zohrabian, who was among those invited to attend the parliamentary hearings, was skeptical that the government would approve the bill.
“They will sooner report to [Azerbaijani President Ilham] Aliyev and Milli Majlis [Azerbaijan’s parliament] than to the Armenian parliament or Armenian society. I think that the countdown to the final loss of Artsakh has started. And we have no time for delay,” she said.
In explaining why members of the ruling Civil Contract faction did not attend the hearings pro-government lawmaker Hrachya Hakobian said: “We did not want to participate in a discussion that leads to nowhere.”
Hakobian said that the government is already fully accountable to the public as all of its members answer questions of lawmakers in parliament every second week.
“Moreover, there was an offer to the opposition to be informed about issues that could not be discussed in front of cameras during closed-door meetings, but they did not want to participate in such meetings,” Civil Contract’s member added.
Representatives of the Armenian opposition have also voiced concerns about possible Armenian concessions in the current dialogue with Turkey.
Hakobian described all opposition concerns that the government would sign any documents behind the public’s back as unfounded.