4 ARMENIAN NGOS AGAINST DISSEMINATION OF RACIST, CHAUVINISTIC IDEAS IN COUNTRY

Four non-governmental organizations of Armenia said they were concerned with “irresponsible statements of some Armenian politicians and public figures,” “who permitted themselves inadmissible generalizations referring to the Azeri people.” According to a joint address of the Civil Society Institute, Yerevan Press Club, Armenian Helsinki Committee and the Caucasian Center for Peace Initiatives, the matter specifically concerns statements made by Chairman of the National Assembly Commission for External Relations Armen Rustamian during an action commemorating victims of the Sumgait pogroms and head of the parliamentary faction of the Republican Party of Armenia Galust Sahakian at a press briefing at the National Assembly March 4, when he was speaking of the murder of the Armenian officer in Budapest. “No matter how painful was the emotional experience on the Budapest tragedy, we call to political restraint and reckon that our country will be led by common sense and democratic values,” the document says. Such statements by politicians of such a high rank, who represent the ruling political coalition, are all the more unacceptable, as they can be considered as official stance of our state, create new obstacles for peace talks on the Karabakh conflict and for normalizing relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan, the leaders of the aforementioned organizations suppose. “The instigation of anti-Armenian sentiments in Azerbaijan and its consequences are worth of severest censure, however these can never justify dissemination of racist, chauvinist ideas, alien to our society,” the address notes.