Banning Armenians from entering Armenia is ingratitude — Robert Kocharyan

The participation of the Diaspora has decreased not naturally, but purposefully, Armenia’s second president Robert Kocharyan said in response to a question from Alpha News.

“Let’s call a spade a spade. It never occurred to me that Armenians could be banned from entering Armenia. My imagination did not work to that extent. Banning entry for Russian figures, whose entire political biography is based on deepening friendship with Armenia, on Karabakh or genocidal issues, is also the peak of ingratitude. After that, they say it’s better to stay away from these Armenians because they, to put it simply, ‘ditch you.’

All this must be abandoned, and the people who made this decision must be punished. This is the same logic of Aragats and Ararat, the old and the new,” said the second president of Armenia.

According to Robert Kocharyan, the Diaspora should not be separated from Armenia.

“What did Margarita Simonyan do to you? She is an accomplished person in Russia. Or Andranik Mihranyan is a well-known and respected person in academic circles. What danger did Andranik Mihranyan, who wanted to visit his parents’ cemetery, pose to you? Do you have any logical explanation?

With regard to the Diaspora, we need to return to the approaches that we had. Armenia with and without the Diaspora are two different weight categories. If you accept this simple truth, you should not take steps that distance the Diaspora from Armenia,” Robert Kocharyan said.