YEREVAN. – Each election is the moment for the authorities when they have to present the work done, what indicators they have achieved, to what extent has the people's lives improved, to what extent have the country's security issues been resolved. Second President Robert Kocharyan, the leader of the "Armenia" bloc that will run in the snap parliamentary elections on June 20, stated this during a meeting with the residents of Erebuni district of the capital Yerevan.

"In fact, all the indicators have fallen in our country, except for two indicators: the level of poverty and the number of graves has increased. I am convinced that you all had pinned high hopes [on the incumbent authorities]. What are these authorities doing now? They try to use various tricks to ‘pour dirt’ on the opponent. When a person has nothing to say, this becomes his only tool," he said.

Among the questions asked to Kocharyan was the well-known proposal of "giving Meghri [city]" to Azerbaijan. "There was no official proposal from the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs on the Meghri issue at all. During my presidency I received three proposals: One was about the creation of a 'common state,' the other was the Key West process when [then Azerbaijani President] Heydar Aliyev did not sign at the last moment, and the last one was the so-called 'Madrid Principles.' There was no other official proposal.

The proposal to exchange Meghri was made by Aliyev. That is why I am now very careful about the word 'corridor' because their [the Azerbaijanis’] objective is much broader than it may seem at first glance. The proposal was made by Aliyev, but it did not get an official wording because our response was the following: ‘We cannot lose the border with Iran.’ This was a very understandable and convincing response. However, he [Aliyev], nonetheless, was trying to advance this idea through the mediators, but this did not become a subject of discussion within the framework of the Minsk Group.

Now they [the incumbent Armenian authorities] are trying to link the Meghri issue to [the parliament shootings of] October 27, [1999] as if [then PM] Vazgen Sargsyan and [then speaker of parliament] Karen Demichyan [who were killed in these shootings] were sharply against it. This issue was never discussed at the Security Council meeting. If they were against [it], it seems that this proposal should have become a reality after them. But it was completely lost; there is no logic here," said Robert Kocharyan.