Serzh Sargsyan’s response to Levon Ter-Petrosyan’s open letter

President Serzh Sargsyan of the Republic of Armenia has responded to former RA President Levon Ter-Petrosyan’s open letter. The response reads as follows:

“I am grateful to you for expressing your concern in the open letter addressed to me on the 17th of February this year. I have to say, in the first place, that I categorically refuse your characterizations of the Pan-Armenian Declaration on the 100th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. I refuse it not only because it is the first document adopted since independence authored by all organizations and communities representing the Armenian nation, thereby truly becoming a unique symbol of national unity, but also because it has been drafted by numerous prominent international experts in the fields intertwined in the document, people whose professionalism is beyond question. Hence, it is obvious that your reference to possible contradictions of the declaration with the Constitution of the Republic of Armenia and international legal documents, as well as to other issues of such kind can’t be deemed reasonable.

Since the moment of its establishment, the State Commission on Coordination of the events for the commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide has acted based on the primary principle of unifying everybody and taking into account everybody’s opinion. Both before the period until the 24th of April and after that, numerous addresses are yet to be delivered, countless statements to be worked out, numerous letters to be written and multifarious initiatives to be fulfilled. If there are still opinions and proposals which, for one reason or another, have not been put up for discussion at the right time, all the same, they must not be omitted from that common platform and must be taken into account. You mention that we need to hold a tete-a-tete meeting. I see no problem. Moreover, I think that your arguments justifying the impossibility of such a meeting are inappropriate. Yet, when you deem it necessary and desirable to hold a tete-a-tete meeting on the genocide centenary events, I am ready to send you an invitation.”