The head of the Public Council of Armenia Vazgen Manukyan considers unacceptable the attempts to solve any issues with illegal actions. In a conversation with “Armenpress” Manukyan commented on the hostage situation in Yerevan. “Solving problems with illegal actions is unacceptable, I’m not a supporter of these kind of actions. They only harm Armenia. There are other way to resolve issues,” Manukyan said.
“A group of armed people have taken as hostages a small group of policemen and in order to release them they demand the release of Jirayr Sefilyan who was imprisoned with the charges of illegally obtaining, keeping, transporting weaponry. A policeman has been killed, two have been wounded. In order to stop and disrupt the criminal actions of the armed group that illegally holds the area, the Special Forces have released two hostages.
An armed group has entered the building of the patrol police department in Yerevan and keeps people there with the threat of violence.
Currently the society is becoming more demanding, and the civil society should raise from that demanding and lead the public, make the state and the authorities assume that responsibility. I don’t know it succeeds or not, I can’t say, the situation is yet unstable and indefinite.
“As you know the death penalty had been removed from our legal system. We will discuss… what further measures we should take to prevent such future attempts,” Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said on Saturday morning when the arrests of pro-coup officers and soldiers were in full swing across the country.
More than 160 people, many of them civilians, are now confirmed dead – while over a 1000 others were wounded following overnight clashes, gunfire and explosions, principally in Turkey’s major cities of Ankara and Istanbul. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has insisted his government is back in charge and promised to purge the armed forces of rebels.
“Statements by the military, initiating the coup are noteworthy enough. They said this was an attempt to restore democracy and human rights, and this was an attempt to raise the honor of the humiliated military, i.e. the last attempt of Ataturkists—to make Turkey, existent in the 1980s, more secular. What would happen if this military won? It’s difficult to say. It’s not excluded, though, that as a rule, it would be followed by what has been followed almost after any military coup since 1960—reconceptualization of USA-Turkey relations.”
“Turkey’s internal life has entered a different-quality phase,” Cengiz Aktar, well-known publicist, Associate Professor at Süleyman Şah University, told 168.am reflecting to the attempted coup overnight. He stated that the night will leave a rather negative track in Turkey’s internal life. Aktar said that an attempted coup was recorded by planned military figures or intellectuals of the regime.
“Attempted coup, in fact, has foiled. A while ago the Prime Minister mentioned in his speech that the attempt foiled, and they’re controlling it. However, he also called on the people to go to the streets with the flags of Turkey. It’s interesting if plotters have been completely neutralized, and they’re controlling the situation, why did Erdogan call on the people? Basically, not everything has calmed down, either they are afraid of the second attempt. Attempted coup was mainly initiated by General Command of the Turkish Air Force and Gendarmerie General Command.”
Secretary General Zannier expressed faith in the wisdom of the Turkish leadership: “ I call on the Turkish Government and democratic institutions to exercise restraint in the aftermath of last night’s events. Rule of law, democracy, respect for human rights and freedom of the media must be upheld even in difficult times. We stand ready to support Turkey in safeguarding the common values and principles that constitute the cornerstone of the OSCE,” said Zannier.
