By Appo Jabarian Executive Publisher/Managing Editor USA Armenian Life Magazine #1276 | October 19, 2011 The Southern California festivities in celebration of the 20th anniversary of Armenia’s independence brought to Los Angeles Pres. Serzh Sargsyan and his entourage, including Foreign Minister Eduard Nalbandian and Vigen Sargsyan then Deputy Chief of Staff of the President. During the social hour of a late September reception marking the inauguration of the new building of the Consulate General of the Republic of Armenia in Glendale, I was approached by a man in his thirties and started talking to me. Before he went any further, I introduced myself and asked him to do the same. He said he was Vigen Sargsyan. In an abrupt tone, he said: “It was with great displeasure that I read your very, very repulsive article about me.” I remembered well my article about his damaging statements on Armenian territories in Artsakh (Nagorno Karabagh) during a 2010 conference in Washington DC. I replied: “But what I wrote is the truth about your statements, Mr. Sargsyan!” Shamelessly he answered: “Absolutely not! You have wrongly attributed to me comments that I never made.” I answered: “But I have the proof.” At that very moment, a few men in black suits, looking like bodyguards, approached me, stared at me, and then followed Mr. V. Sargsyan to the exit door. Back in March 2010, I wrote an article titled “Deputy Chief of Staff to the President of Armenia, Vigen Sargsyan Undermines Armenia’s National Security.” I reported: “In February, Deputy Chief of Staff to the President of Armenia Vigen Sargsyan visited the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, DC, to discuss the prospects and ‘potential benefits of normalization of relations between Turkey and Armenia,’ according to the CSIS website. During the question-and-answer session, in response to a question from Mr. Kazari of the Embassy of the Republic of Azerbaijan in Washington, DC, Mr. Sargsyan astonishingly said the following regarding the current Armenian-Azeri border: ‘All those important parts of the borders can be de-blocked. Our immediate borders between Armenia and Azerbaijan have nothing to do with the territories around Nagorno Karabagh. … Now as far as the occupation, our concerns are very much in favor [of] … what is important [is that] the president of Armenia [Serzh Sargsyan], who was the Minister of Defense of these territories, has always stated that he does not think of these territories as historic Armenian lands. He always stated that these territories have to return to Azerbaijan when the settlement of Nagorno-Karabagh is found.’” I also wrote: “Is Mr. V. Sargsyan aware that the territories surrounding mountainous Artsakh have always been part of Armenia? The now-liberated territories around Artsakh are part of the entire Region of Artsakh that extends to the Kura River, just east of the border between the Republic of Artsakh and the former Soviet Socialist Republic of Azerbaijan. As Mr. V. Sargsyan should know, the Artsakh Region along with Nakhitchevan was arbitrarily carved out of the 1918-1920 independent Democratic Republic of Armenia. These regions were part of Armenia up until its takeover by the Soviet occupation forces in November 1920.” My article was based on the audio recording of Mr. V. Sarsgyan’s anti-Armenia comments posted at www.csis.org. As of Tuesday October 18, the link to the audio file was still operational. Use the following link: (http://csis.org/multimedia/audio-prospects-armenia-turkey-normalization-view-yerevan) Fast-forward to the last 5 minutes of his remarks. (Audio file icon is located under the heading: “Audio: The Prospects for Armenia-Turkey Normalization: The View from Yerevan.” Press on the “Download Audio” icon to fast forward to the last five minutes of Sarsgyan’s official presentation.) In 2010, when I was writing the exposé on Mr. V. Sargsyan’s remarks, it never crossed my mind that the day would come when V. Sargsyan would not only deny the recorded facts, but also would have the gull to qualify a factual article as “baseless” and “repulsive”. An honest leader would reexamine his fatally flawed position and would rectify it for the common good of his people. On the contrary, then Deputy Chief of Staff Mr. V. Sargsyan tried to muzzle me as a member of the free press. Apparently the wide circulation of my article in several languages, including English, French, Russian and Armenian, kept Mr. V. Sargsyan preoccupied and even troubled with the controversy sparked by his damaging remarks in Washington. Several Azeris and Turks applauded his position, and of course, Armenians lashed out at him for parroting the enemy’s political line. And now, making matters even more interesting, an explosive number of media reports focused on the recent presidential decree promoting V. Sargsyan to the rank of Chief of Staff of the President of Armenia. Several media outlets unmasked V. Sargsyan as a hidden member of the now-disgraced and defunct (“H.H.Sh.”) “Armenian National Movement” Party that plundered Armenia under First President Levon Ter-Petrossyan. No wonder he was a trusted assistant of Babken Ararktsian – a “H.H.Sh.” leader! Azatutyun.am disclosed: “Sargsian, who already served as acting chief of the staff before the appointment, was a foreign policy adviser to former parliament speaker Babken Ararktsian before studying at and graduating from the U.S. Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in 2000.” To make matters even worse for V. Sargsyan, an anonymous letter was published on several websites in Armenia exposing “V. Sargsyan’s allegiance to foreign entities to the detriment of Armenia.” Lragir.am News reported: “Vigen Sargsyan is the representative of the Western stream. In this sense, perhaps it is worthwhile to remember a letter sent by email to the Armenian media. Some of them published this letter which presented Vigen Sargsyan as someone who works for the United States. However, independent from this suspicious anonymous letter, it is obvious that Vigen Sargsyan is a representative of the so-called Western stream who now takes up the position of the chief of staff.” Has Pres. Sargsyan made matters even worse for his administration by promoting an individual who muzzles the media? Definitely. Will Mr. V. Sargsyan add to Pres. Sargsyan’s political woes? Absolutely.

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