No Chair Was Allocated for the Country's Leader to Pashinyan: "Iravunk"

Many may have noticed that after his speech at the PACE, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan answered the questions of the delegates from his seat, sitting in a row with Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanyan, his press secretary Vladimir Karapetyan, and others. Moreover, each time he stood up to respond to a question and then sat back down.

In contrast, during the presidencies of former Armenian Presidents Robert Kocharian and Serzh Sargsyan, a special chair was allocated for the leaders of the country at the podium, from which they responded to the questions of PACE members. When "Iravunk" inquired about the reason a designated chair was not provided for Pashinyan, the Chair of the National Assembly's Standing Committee on Foreign Relations, Ruben Rubinyan of the ruling Civil Contract party, stated:

- I should mention that the day before, the Prime Minister of Georgia also spoke at PACE and was in the same format, meaning he was sitting in the same place. I think this is purely a procedural issue of PACE, where heads of state are seated in one manner, and Prime Ministers are seated differently. Therefore, this is purely a procedural matter, and as far as I remember, Prime Ministers at PACE have always responded in this format.

Of course, at first glance, it may create an impression that this justification is appropriate. But upon closer examination, it turns out that citing Georgia was not suitable at all.

It should be noted that in our neighboring Georgia, unlike Armenia, there is a directly elected president, while we do not have such an opportunity. Essentially, the president in Georgia has more authority than the President of Armenia.

Thus, if the Armenian PACE delegation or the prime minister's protocol department had explained well that, according to the Armenian Constitution, our country is led by the Prime Minister, they probably would have provided a chair for Nikol Pashinyan as well.

If, knowing this, PACE decided to 'comfortably seat' Pashinyan in an ordinary minister's chair, one can at least conclude that in Europe, the head of our country, as noted by Rubinyan, is perceived as the President of Armenia, Armen Sarkissian, rather than Pashinyan. Otherwise, it seems that due to another oversight, PACE did not recognize who was speaking from Armenia on the velvet revolution and about his own person,” the newspaper writes.

The full article can be read in today's edition of the newspaper.