Since 29 June the civic initiative Hayaqve was launched, the declared aim of which is to stop relinquishing Artsakh to Azerbaijan. The organizers state that in order to achieve this they want within 60 days to collect 50,000 signatures of Armenian citizens demanding that a legal amendment be introduced, which will criminalize any action recognizing Artsakh as a part of Azerbaijan. As coordinator of the civic initiative Avetik Chalabyan told in an interview with the NewsArmenia.am media resource, in case the National Assembly declines to adopt a respective law, they will “force” their will through a referendum.
Since 29 June the civic initiative Hayaqve was launched, the declared aim of which is to stop relinquishing Artsakh to Azerbaijan. The organizers state that in order to achieve this they want to collect within 60 days 50,000 signatures of Armenian citizens demanding that a legal amendment be introduced, which will criminalize any action recognizing Artsakh as a part of Azerbaijan. As coordinator of the civic initiative Avetik Chalabyan told in an interview with the NewsArmenia.am media resource, in case the National Assembly declines to adopt a respective law, they will “force” their will through a referendum.
The organizers of the initiative believe that this would stop surrender of Artsakh. “Through public pressure we will achieve our aim that the incumbent authorities had to choose either to criminalize any action which recognizes Artsakh as part of Azerbaijan and declare their allegiance to the Armenian Independence Declaration and the Armenian Supreme Council 8 July 1992 decision or to resign,” says the statement published on the civic group’s website. The initiative specifically requires a prison term of 10 to 15 years for any official who would “recognize Artsakh as part of another county” or deny the occurrence of the Armenian genocide.
It is worth mentioning that Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has announced on readiness to recognize Artsakh as part of Azerbaijan in case their rights and security are ensured. On 12 June 66 citizens of Armenia submitted a petition to the Central Electoral Committee announcing the formation of the initiative group on introducing amendments to the Penal Code of the Republic of Armenia. The Central Electoral Committee has given a period of 60 days for the collection of the 50,000 signatures
People with Armenian citizenship and above the age of 18 can join the petition with their signatures at local administration buildings throughout the country. In Yerevan the signatures are collected in each of the 12 district administration headquarters, but not in the Yerevan city hall
Historical Background
The current Armenian National Assembly’s forerunner, the Supreme Council back in 1992 had adopted a “Decision on the situation evolving in Nagorno-Karabakh” as the Hayaqve initiative stated. The decision particularly stipulated that “to consider unacceptable to the Republic of Armenia any national or international legal document, which would mention Nagorno-Karabakh Republic as part of Azerbaijan”.
It is also known that following that in June 1993 Armenian President Levon Ter-Petrosyan signed an agreement with the Nagorno-Karabakh leadership stipulating that under no condition Armenia would agree to putting Nagorno-Karabakh or the Lachin Corridor under Azerbaijani control.
Albeit there is lots of skepticism about the potential of the initiative to reach its declared aim and voices are heard questioning the “real motives” of its organizers, however in any case one would hardly argue that this is an attempt at implementing direct democracy principles to mobilize the society. This can also trigger an honest conversation within the Armenian society and different political players on the issue of our relations with the outer world and our neighbors and push us closer to realizing the sometimes blurred borders between reality and the desired state of affairs.
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