From: EurasiaDigest (digest@eurasianet.org)
Date: Wed Oct 10 2007 - 10:28:52 EDT
PROMINENT ARMENIAN OPPOSITION FIGURES MEET
Former Armenian President Levon Ter-Petrossian and opposition leader Vazgen Manukian, two long-time political rivals, held a closed meeting on October 8 in Yerevan. Manukian later told reporters that the two men remain divided in their political views, RFE/RL's Armenian Service reported. Manukian, the leader of the opposition National-Democratic Union (AZhM), noted that the meeting with Ter-Petrossian resulted in an agreement to "share information." Manukian added that he still intends to run for president in next year's election. Ter-Petrossian has been considering a return to politics, and supporters from his Armenian Pan-National Movement (HHSh) party have been aggressively pushing him to run in the February 2008 presidential election. Manukian and Ter-Petrosian both rose to power during the start of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in the waning days of the Soviet Union, but became bitter rivals after Manukian's term as defense minister in the Ter-Petrossian government 1993. That rivalry deepened after the
former president barely defeated Manukian in the presidential election in 1996, a contest tainted by Ter-Petrossian's decision to send tanks into the streets of Yerevan to quell opposition protests triggered by reports of widespread election fraud. RG
|
