YEREVAN -- Armenian opposition leader Levon Ter-Petrossian criticized the government's Turkish-Armenian
"road map" agreement at a May Day rally in Yerevan, RFE/RL's Armenian Service reports.
Ter-Petrossian, a former president and head of the Armenian National Congress (HAK), told thousands of supporters that President Serzh Sarkisian has not only "sold out the genocide" but added that Sarkisian will also "sell out" Azerbaijan's breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Ter-Petrossian predicted that relations between Armenia and Turkey will not be normalized and the Turkish-Armenian border will not be opened soon, leaving Armenia empty-handed in rapprochement efforts with Ankara that culminated with the "road map" agreement on April 22.
Speaking one day before the start of campaigning for the May 31 municipal elections in which Ter-Petrossian is standing for mayor, he called Sarkisian's rule a "kleptocratic system" and urged officials to ensure free and fair elections.
He said it is Sarkisian's last chance "to gain some authority with Armenian society and the international community."
The speech was followed by an unsanctioned march through Yerevan that police did not interfere with.