During a conversation with Armenian News-NEWS.am, Representative of the Bureau for the Armenian Cause and Political Affairs of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation-Dashnaktsutyun political party Kiro Manoyan touched upon the Prime Minister’s recent live broadcast during which the Prime Minister said the following: “About forty years ago, 90% of Armenians of the Diaspora were members of certain organizations, but now there are only 10%.”

According to Manoyan, there are also charitable, youth and cultural organizations in the Diaspora, as well as the Church, and it plays its role.

“Before Armenia’s declaration of independence, the relations between Armenia and the Diaspora were coordinated through the Committee for Relations with the Diaspora, not Armenian organizations in the Diaspora. The Committee would discriminate between various circles of the Diaspora, but later, the Committee slowly started establishing relations with those circles,” Kiro Manoyan said, adding that the Prime Minister is making the same mistake of the former authorities and isn’t consulting with the organizations consolidating the 10% of Armenians that he mentioned.

“Throughout the years of independence, all governments have tried to circumvent the organizations that the Prime Minister hinted because maintaining ties through those organizations means that those organizations are valued, and the authorities didn’t want and don’t want to have organizations with which they need to reckon,” he said.

Kiro Manoyan believes that even though it is necessary to make sure more Armenians of the Diaspora are engaged in the Armenian reality, circumventing these organizations is not the way to do it.