Tweet
IS THIS BALANCE
In answer to innumerable questions asked by citizens and reporters on
the purpose of forwarding Zori Balayan's famous letter to Putin to the
U.S. and French presidents and what consequences this initiative by
Haik Kotanjyan could bring, the president of the Armenian Association
of Political Scientists Hmayak Hovhannisyan posted the following on
his Facebook wall:
"Haik Kotanjyan's letter was the unsuccessful attempt of the president
administration to cover up the order to Zori Balayan to write the
letter and balance its bias.
Why unsuccessful? Haik Kotanjyan is not a retired officer but a
general in military service. If you visit the official website of the
RA Ministry of Defense, you will see a photo of Haik Kotanjyan with
insignia and you will learn that he is a serviceman, not a civil
servant of the MoD. The ministry of defense is a security agency,
and those in actual military service cannot express individual
political positions, take the initiative to defend the open letter of
the "freethinker" writer to the head of another state. Hence, Haik
Kotanjyan's effort to introduce himself as a head of an NGO cannot
mean anything the EU ambassadors. In fact, instead of covering up
they revealed that Zori Balayan's letter had been ordered from "above".
One does not need to be Snowden to understand that the embassy of
any more or less big country has special people who collect internet
info on more or less outstanding personalities, process and present
this info to the ambassador. I advise to turn to Ambassador Arman
Navasardyan, the ex-deputy minister of foreign affairs, member of
the board of the Armenian Association of Political Scientists for
more detailed explanation. For my part, I can only add that I respect
Haik Kotanjyan. In 1991 he was elected to the board of the Armenian
Association of Political Scientists during the founding conference but
his membership was terminated when he moved to actual military service.
In fact, the issue is not only Haik Kotanjyan's status. While one may
justify Zori Balayan's open letter to the Russian president Vladimir
Putin that stresses the importance of the Treaty of Gulistan signed
between the Russian king and Persian shah 200 years ago by saying
that the letter is about the breakthrough in the Armenian-Russian
relations then, forwarding it to the U.S. president Barack Obama and
the French president Francois Hollande defies a rational explanation. I
insist that the Armenian president shall hold the exclusive right to
address the Russian president on issues relating to Armenia or the
Armenian people, and I equally insist that Zori Balayan shall hold
the exclusive right to forward Zori Balayan's letter to others.
We are establishing ethics commissions but we have not understood
that communication is a responsible genre and forwarding a letter
addressed to one to another by someone who is not the author of the
letter is an insult to the addressee. If the addressee is a head of
state, forwarding the letter addressed to the head of another state
to him or her could be perceived as an insult for his or her state.
So "balance" also failed. As the saying is, instead of fixing the
eyebrow we plucked the eye of the Europeans and Americans. How could
one ask Francois Hollande to read a letter which does not contain a
single sentence on Armenian-French cultural similarities and focuses
on Armenian-Russian similarities? The same goes for the Americans
and Barack Obama. If balance was the purpose, is this the balance?"
16:13 24/10/2013 Story from Lragir.am News:
http://www.lragir.am/index/eng/0/politics/view/31173
From: Baghdasarian
In answer to innumerable questions asked by citizens and reporters on
the purpose of forwarding Zori Balayan's famous letter to Putin to the
U.S. and French presidents and what consequences this initiative by
Haik Kotanjyan could bring, the president of the Armenian Association
of Political Scientists Hmayak Hovhannisyan posted the following on
his Facebook wall:
"Haik Kotanjyan's letter was the unsuccessful attempt of the president
administration to cover up the order to Zori Balayan to write the
letter and balance its bias.
Why unsuccessful? Haik Kotanjyan is not a retired officer but a
general in military service. If you visit the official website of the
RA Ministry of Defense, you will see a photo of Haik Kotanjyan with
insignia and you will learn that he is a serviceman, not a civil
servant of the MoD. The ministry of defense is a security agency,
and those in actual military service cannot express individual
political positions, take the initiative to defend the open letter of
the "freethinker" writer to the head of another state. Hence, Haik
Kotanjyan's effort to introduce himself as a head of an NGO cannot
mean anything the EU ambassadors. In fact, instead of covering up
they revealed that Zori Balayan's letter had been ordered from "above".
One does not need to be Snowden to understand that the embassy of
any more or less big country has special people who collect internet
info on more or less outstanding personalities, process and present
this info to the ambassador. I advise to turn to Ambassador Arman
Navasardyan, the ex-deputy minister of foreign affairs, member of
the board of the Armenian Association of Political Scientists for
more detailed explanation. For my part, I can only add that I respect
Haik Kotanjyan. In 1991 he was elected to the board of the Armenian
Association of Political Scientists during the founding conference but
his membership was terminated when he moved to actual military service.
In fact, the issue is not only Haik Kotanjyan's status. While one may
justify Zori Balayan's open letter to the Russian president Vladimir
Putin that stresses the importance of the Treaty of Gulistan signed
between the Russian king and Persian shah 200 years ago by saying
that the letter is about the breakthrough in the Armenian-Russian
relations then, forwarding it to the U.S. president Barack Obama and
the French president Francois Hollande defies a rational explanation. I
insist that the Armenian president shall hold the exclusive right to
address the Russian president on issues relating to Armenia or the
Armenian people, and I equally insist that Zori Balayan shall hold
the exclusive right to forward Zori Balayan's letter to others.
We are establishing ethics commissions but we have not understood
that communication is a responsible genre and forwarding a letter
addressed to one to another by someone who is not the author of the
letter is an insult to the addressee. If the addressee is a head of
state, forwarding the letter addressed to the head of another state
to him or her could be perceived as an insult for his or her state.
So "balance" also failed. As the saying is, instead of fixing the
eyebrow we plucked the eye of the Europeans and Americans. How could
one ask Francois Hollande to read a letter which does not contain a
single sentence on Armenian-French cultural similarities and focuses
on Armenian-Russian similarities? The same goes for the Americans
and Barack Obama. If balance was the purpose, is this the balance?"
16:13 24/10/2013 Story from Lragir.am News:
http://www.lragir.am/index/eng/0/politics/view/31173
From: Baghdasarian