Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) Vice President Armen Ashotyan, currently under house arrest, has declared his full support for the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF), despite past disagreements. He emphasized that “the pain that unites us is greater than the ambitions and grievances that divide us.”
Ashotyan underscored that both HHK and ARF are exceptional institutional national forces.
“Regardless of my natural and unnatural, justified and unjustified, partial and current disagreements with the ARF, I fully support and stand with my comrades and colleagues—those who stand by in struggle and in life, in arrest and in freedom, usually in hard times as comrades-in-arms, and in easier times as my opponents.
I dream of the day when we will again have the luxury to debate conservatism and socialism while always staying true to our national character.
Some may again question the symbolism of this photo.
But I am posting it not only because of the latest overt repressions against the ARF. Not only in memory of how, in the distant past, my late grandfather Yeprem would sing ARF songs while pruning mulberries in our yard.
Not only because I have more friends in ARF than anywhere else, aside from RPA.
Not only because this particular hat was gifted to me by a respectable ARF member who came from abroad to our RPA office.
Not only due to the undeniable fact that RPA and ARF are unique institutional national forces.
Not only because my party and I are open-minded and mature enough to look far beyond narrow partisan propaganda.
I’m posting it because one hand washes the other, and two hands wash the face.
Because the pain that unites us is greater than the years, ambitions, and resentments that separate us.
Because our people have one interest, and together we have tasks, obligations, and a mission—we have a Homeland.
Rooted in demands, united in devotion to the homeland, your fellow countryman,” Ashotyan wrote.
On the morning of July 10, searches were carried out in the homes of ARF members, after which seven individuals were arrested and taken to the Investigative Committee of Armenia.
