Serzh Sargsyan's Response to Levon Ter-Petrosyan's Open Letter

• 02.20.2015, 17:51
•  Armenia

The President of Armenia, Serzh Sargsyan responded to the open letter of the former RA President Levon Ter-Petrosyan. In the reply it is stated:

"Thank you for expressing your concerns in the open letter addressed to me on February 17 of this year. I must say that I categorically reject your comments on the Pan-Armenian Declaration on the 100^th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. I reject it not just because it is the only document adopted since the independence, that is authored by the representatives of almost all organizations and communities representing the Armenians; a document which became a unique symbol of national unity. I reject it because serious specialists on the intersecting aspects of the document from different parts of the world were also involved in its preparation process: people, whose professionalism I trust. Thus it is obvious that I cannot consider your remarks on the possible contradictions of the Declaration to the Constitution of the Republic of Armenia or to the international legal documents and issues like that, to be reasonable.

The primary principle of uniting everyone and taking into consideration everyone’s opinion has been employed since the formation of the State Commission on Coordination of the events dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. Both before April 24 and afterwards different messages will be addressed, different statements will be formulated, different letters will be written and most different initiatives will be undertaken. If there are still opinions and suggestions, which were not put on the table for joint-discussions because of various reasons, anyway, they should not be omitted from this platform of unity and should be taken into consideration. Consequently, I think that your suggestions should also be discussed. You posit that it is necessary to organize face-to-face meeting for doing that. I have no problem. Moreover, I think that the explanations, presented by you to prove the impossibility of that meeting, are not pertinent. Thus whenever you feel that you want and need to have a private conversation on the events organized in the framework of the 100th anniversary of the Genocide, I am ready to send you a relevant invitation to ."