Epress.am News from Armenia
On Oct. 7, in the German city of Potsdam, a memorandum of cooperation was signed among three liberal political parties in the South Caucasus: the Pan-Armenian National Movement (Armenia), Musavat (Equality) Party (Azerbaijan) and the Republican Party of Georgia (Georgia).
Speaking with Epress.am yesterday, Pan-Armenian National Movement Chair Aram Manukyan, who signed the agreement, shared the details of the meeting.
“The document has gone through many years of a preparatory phase; at least 8 years of cooperation. We meet with the Azerbaijani, [and] Georgian liberals, we work together: events, seminars, discussions, meetings with youth organizations, and there’s always been the issue that we have agreements on joint principles and for those to be written. In Potsdam, we managed to achieve that,” he said.
Note that in the Armenian delegation were Armenian National Congress (HAK) representatives Davit Shahnazaryan, Vahagn Khachatryan and Hovhannes Hovhannisyan.
“The important [thing] is that the liberal parties take on the responsibility to cooperate with each other and the area of this cooperation is [in] human rights, property rights, free elections, governments whose activities are transparent. It was very important that they were new provisions: the peaceful resolution of conflicts in the South Caucasus and, most importantly, what I consider to be a victory, not a victory over someone but for the overall affair, the need to release political prisoners. This problem is a serious problem for the South Caucasus, and we registered that the release of political prisoners is a serious issue for liberals,” said Manukyan.
The Pan-Armenian National Movement chair also informed Epress.am that beginning tomorrow, 56 European liberal parties will gather in Helsinki for the European Liberal Democrats (ELDR) Congress. According to Manukyan, they now have a serious document to present at that congress.
Manukyan also said that until today, there’s never been such a document.
“Three alternative South Caucasus political parties… if tomorrow there’s a regime change, here [in Armenia], HAK will come, in Azerbaijan, Musavat will come, [and] in Georgia, the Republican [Party]. That is, these three parties are serious political units in the South Caucasus and they had the courage to place a bid to take on responsibility that it’s on this path that the peoples of the South Caucasus must go. That is European integration, joint communication, [and] the peaceful resolution of conflicts,” he said.
Aram Manukyan added that the Pan-Armenian National Movement’s aim is the country’s peace, prosperity, as well as peaceful coexistence in the region, people working together in the name of peace and development in the South Caucasus.
Photo by Onnik Krikorian.