Dashnaks Plan More Protests Against Turkish-Armenian Protocols

Vahan Hovannisian, a leader of the opposition Armenian Revolutionary Federation

YEREVAN -- A leading member of the opposition Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun) has said the party will launch street protests in early January aimed at scuttling implementation of the Turkish-Armenian protocols signed two months ago, RFE/RL's Armenian Service reported.

The Armenian Constitutional Court is scheduled to start assessing the accords on January 12.

Vahan Hovannisian said today the party has received numerous calls to hold "serious actions of protest" on the eve of the announcement of the Constitutional Court decision.

He said that "seeing that a popular wave [of protest] is again rising, we can state for certain that there will be no calm in Armenia during those days."

Dashnaktsutyun quit the four-party coalition government in April to protest President Serzh Sarkisian's policy of rapprochement with Turkey.

The party staged protests against the Turkish-Armenian protocols signed in Zurich on October 10, which it considers a sellout.

The party is particularly unhappy with Yerevan's formal recognition of the existing Turkish-Armenian border and its acceptance of a Turkish proposal to set up a joint commission of historians that would research the mass killings of Armenians at the end of the Ottoman Empire.