Epress.am News from Armenia
Environmentalists protesting shop construction in Mashtots Park are following directives and their protest is turning into a show, said Republican Party of Armenia member Menua Harutyunyan today.
“There’s the impression that they want to justify their actions for the [financial] grants they’ve received,” she told journalists at a press conference in Yerevan.
As for actors and other famous artists and entertainers who paid a visit to the park and showed their solidarity with protestors yesterday, Harutyunyan urged them not to say “anything in an instructive tone” since, according to her, the damaged they’ve caused the country is greater than “those two trees being cut in the park.”
The Republican Party of Armenia member defending Yerevan mayor Taron Margaryan, saying that he made an unprecedented decision. “The mayor for the first time is setting a precedent — that the area is not being sold, but leased,” she said.
Heritage Party MP Armen Martirosyan, also present at the present conference, said the mayor must listen to the environmentalists and dismantle the kiosks from Mashtots Park.
“Buildings have to be built [at least] 5 meters away [from the tree line], but the trees are one meter away from the kiosks. Furthermore, [people] come to the park to relax. It turns out that there won’t be any place for recreation [for a stroll] also in this part of the city,” he said.
Responding to Harutyunyan’s comment on the activists simply being “grant-takers,” the opposition MP reminded her that the first “grant-taker” are the Armenian authorities.