The most consequential palace coup in recent Armenian history

 Vaհe Apelian

Բնագիրը կցուած է։

Unlike the four foreign ministers who served after him, Vartan Oskanian remains the most outspoken, especially for a former FM, to the point of partisan meddling in Diaspora affairs. 

 Vartan Oskanian is a repatriate who joined the Foreign Ministry and worked his way up the diplomatic hierarchy during Ter-Petrosian’s rule. But Vartan Oskanian was a complicit, along with Robert Kocharian, Serzh Sargsyan in orchestrating the most consequential palace coup in Armenia that resulted in the unseating of the president Levon Ter Petrosyan and eventually in the loss and depopulation of Karabakh of its native Armenians. 

Historically on November 1, 1997, Levon Ter Petrosyan published his “War or Peace, Time to get Serious” position paper to resolve the Karabagh conflict advocating concessions. It was LTP’s negotiating position outlined in that document that resulted in the most consequential palace coup engineered by Robert Kocharian, Serzh Sargsyan, Vazken Sarkissian and Vartan Oskanian. The coup unseated president LTP’s a few months later, on February 3, 1998 and Robert Kocharian assumed power with Vartan Oskanian as his FM.

In a recent posting on his Facebook page, Tatul Hagopian labelled that palace coup a political crime and wrote, “in 1997-1998, a political crime was committed in Armenia, as a result of which the historical opportunity to settle the Artsakh conflict was aborted.” . From there on “Serzh Sargsyan, like Kocharyan before him, each for ten years and Pashinyan for two years, failed to act decisively. Consecutively they missed the opportunities to settle the Artsakh conflict.” 

I could not find English language translation of LTP”s  historic paper, “war or peace, time to get serious”. Consequently, I resorted to translating it and posted it below it in four segments, titling each segment with a quote from the document as follows: The only option for solving the Karabakh question is compromise, the path of adventurers will lead to inevitable defeat, the five myths and two riddles, our only ally is refusal of adventure. Բնագիրները կցուած են։

 Part 1 – The only option for solving the Karabakh question is compromise,'

http://vhapelian.blogspot.com/2024/10/war-or-peace-time-to-get-serious_23.html

Part 2 - The path of adventurers will lead to inevitable defeat

http://vhapelian.blogspot.com/2024/10/war-or-peace-time-to-get-serious_29.html

Part 3 - Five myths and  two riddles

http://vhapelian.blogspot.com/2024/11/war-or-peace-time-to-get-serious.html

Part 4/4 - Our only ally is the refusal of adventure

http://vhapelian.blogspot.com/2024/11/war-or-peace-time-to-get-serious_12.html

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