Newly-elected chairman of the Armenian National Movement (HHSh) Aram Manukyan invited journalists July 21 to announce he supports first President of Armenia Levon Ter-Petrosyan’s statement that the development and security of Armenia is directly connected with a Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement and normalization of the Armenian-Turkish relations.

Manukyan, who now leads the party that is a key member in the Ter-Petrosyan-led Armenian National Congress, believes that the first president’s statement made on July 17, during the HHSh congress, by its contents does not differ from the one he made in 2007 and which marked his political comeback after nearly a decade of reclusion.

Critics, however, say that in 2007 Ter-Petrosyan said quite the opposite, mainly stating that only by means of solving Armenia’s domestic problems would it become possible to reach the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement and normalization of Armenian-Turkish relations.

“He [Ter-Petrosyan] suggests that by means of replacing the current authorities with legitimate authorities it would still be possible to solve the two problems,” Manukyan says.

The latest statement of the first president of Armenia elicited strong backlash not only in the pro-government camp, but also among some opposition representatives. Ter-Petrosyan’s associate Karapet Rubinyan also referred to that statement in his recent letter in which he announced his resignation from HHSh, mainly due to alleged falsifications in intra-party elections, shortly after the party’s convention.

Different political figures also state that there is an unhealthy atmosphere within HHSh, which Manukyan refutes, saying that they have serious things to be accomplished; for example to voice the issue of political prisoners in the international arena, to enlarge the scope of their activities in Armenia and attract more youths to their party.