Vazgen Manukyan, Chairman of the Public Council, has resigned. He applied to council members:

“Dear colleagues,

The new authorities have had a unique opportunity to lead our country towards development, unite the people around national issues, and promote the well-being of our citizens by building a more democratic and more effective national state.

Unfortunately, the authorities went the other way, and today in our country an atmosphere of mistrust and hatred has developed, a social split that has never happened. And this is when the world and our region have changed so much, adding new dangers and challenges to our security, to Artsakh.

Under these conditions, the goal of the Government should have been to alleviate the cracks in society, to create an atmosphere of solidarity, to unite the people. One of the most effective tools for achieving this goal could be the Public Council itself, one of the important functions of which is to promote mutual trust, dialogue and partnerships between the law, government, public administration bodies, and civil society institutions.

Instead, the authorities continue to discuss drafts and take steps that will further divide our society. This is transitional justice, the law on property confiscation without any indictment, the changes in the education sector, and the use of the judicial system to solve political problems, and so on.

At the last meeting of the Public Council, I told you that I have tried several times to meet with the Prime Minister, to find ways of working together to alleviate tensions in the society and to prevent some steps through the Public Council that, in my opinion, are dangerous to the state. You also know that those attempts have failed.

Some time has passed since our last meeting, and no response again.

Under these conditions, I consider my further work in the Public Council meaningless and leave the council, which I have already informed the Government in writing.

I will continue to fight for the interests of our state and our people, as I have done throughout my life.

Dear Colleagues,

I thank you all. We have had an interesting and difficult journey with many of you since 2009, trying to create a civilized platform, to create a new public culture, to find compromise solutions to the problems, disputes, and tensions between society and government.

I hope the Public Council will continue to maintain its quality and continue to serve its goals,” he wrote.