Kocharyan again turns to lobbyists to publish an article in the press

American newspaper “The National Interest” published an article titled “Why the West Should Care about the Turmoil in Armenia”.

The author of the article, Wes Martin, argues that Armenia is in a state of political abyss, that is, the Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan implements “crowd management” and wants to eliminate the political opposition. According to him, the 2008 presidential elections were “open” and Levon Ter-Petrosyan’s supporters, not accepting “Kocharyan’s victory organized disorders in Yerevan “. According to him, the European Union has considered the state of emergency declared by Kocharyan an appropriate step.

Martin insists that in the course of this decade a number of Armenian state and international bodies have made decisions on the case of March 1 in favor of Kocharyan. The author claims that Pashinyan has a personal problem with Kocharyan and will not stop until he removes all the political opponents.

As an example, he brings the wiretapped phone conversations of the head of the National Security Service Arthur Vanetsyan and the SIS head Sasun Khachatryan, revealing the abuse of power and the absolute indifference of the rule of law by the Pashinyan government’s upper circles. The author calls on the United States and the European Union not to keep silent and not to believe Pashinyan’s words.

The article is similar to the article recently published in the Washington Times, the author of which is a pro-Turkish lobbyist. The American-Armenian political scientist Emil Sanamyan thinks that this practice can be called “hire an intellectual service” when the ready-made text is sent to several candidates and the name of the first respondent is written as an author.

Martin, a retired colonel of the US Military Police and served during the Iraq war. He is now presenting himself as an independent author and researcher in the field of international relations. According to the “Iran Interlink” website, which is related to Iran’s Intelligence, and the independent expert website globalsecurity.org, he is a lobbyist who defends the military-political movement “Mujahideen-e Khalk” (“People’s Mujahideen of Iran”) who fights against the current Iranian authorities, and is often considered a terrorist organization. Martin regularly writes articles on Iran in the American news outlets.

He also has connections with the Turkish Heritage Organization, a pro-Turkish lobby. Interestingly, he does not particularly touch upon the Armenian-Turkish issue. In the framework of cooperation with them, Martin particularly touches upon the Kurdish question, the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party), the future of Syrian Kurds and Turkey’s involvement in the Syrian war.

In addition, this article was referred in Armenian press by 7or.am and zham.am websites, which are connected with Kocharyan’s name.

Hovhannes Nazaretyan