YEREVAN -- The Armenian National Congress (HAK) has repeated its call for President Serzh Sarkisian's resignation over what they term the "immoral and inadmissible" landmark deal he signed with Turkey on October 10.
The HAK -- Armenia's largest opposition alliance -- released an official reaction to the deal on October 14, with leading HAK offical Levon Zurabian announcing that it is unprecedented in Armenian history for the country's leader to give "such big gifts to the Turkish state and nation."
The party charged Sarkisian's administration with "political bankruptcy" and "diplomatic wretchedness" by sacrificing greater international recognition of the Armenian genocide in return for empty Turkish promises, RFE/RL's Armenian Service reports.
The party, led by former President Levon Ter-Petrosian, was especially concerned about a clause in the agreement that calls for a joint Turkish-Armenian study of the World War I-era mass killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire.
Like many in Armenia and its diaspora, the HAK is convinced that the Turks will exploit the study to prevent more countries from recognizing what many historians consider the first genocide of the 20th century.