The Smell of Aliyev’s Petrodollars in the Armenian Parliament, says Republican MP

Republican Party of Armenia (HHK) Parliamentary Faction Leader Vahram Baghdasaryan (pictured) doesn’t consider it a coincidence that speeches in Parliament about President Serzh Sargsyan occur before Presidential meetings with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. In his speech Baghdasaryan referred to speeches made by opposition MPs yesterday, saying that he knows that certain people “receive money from across the ocean to implement orders and provide for their families,” nevertheless there has been a trend in the Parliament lately to make such speeches which are inline with being traitorous to the state. Baghdasaryan stated that certain speeches “have a smell of Aliyev’s petrodollars.”

“This Parliament’s podium has been used to provide misinformation to Azerbaijan and Turkey, fake information has been provided to our enemy governments.” said Baghdasaryan.

He also made a call for MPs not to mention past deaths resulting from various incidents, and to not go into the victims' families' homes and stir up old wounds.

Recall, that yesterday some MPs referred to the March 1st incidents, while the Heritage Party faction MP Zaruhi Postanjyan tried to read from her speech, demanding a sentence of life imprisonment for president Serzh Sargsyan, in which the Parliament’s Vice-Speaker Eduard Sharmazanov turned off her microphone in the middle of her speech.

Today, Armenian National Congress MP Nikol Pashinyan and Zaruhi Postanjyan began to counter Baghdasaryan's words, however, their microphone’s were off and journalists were unable to hear much of their responses, except for Nikol Pashinyan’s “that smell is coming from your speech!”

During the session’s recess Zaruhi Postanjyan told Epress.am that she asked the Parliamentary Speaker, why he is not turning off Vahram Baghdasaryan’s microphone, despite him offending other MPs. Postanjyan mentioned that they had turned off her microphone yesterday because she was offensive when speaking about Serzh Sargsyan, while today, they are conducting a different policy. The MP stressed that offensive speeches need to be proved by the courts, and she sides with the policy of not turning off microphones at all, although noting that today’s incident was a case of double standards.

In response to the expressed discontent from the MPs, Galust Sahakyan asked everyone to “calmly listen” to Baghdasaryan, while the latter said that he is not giving out names, but the fact that people are responding defensively means that they are “taking responsibility,” and that there is some truth to what he had said earlier.