They raised their hands, as was customary in Europe, as a sign of victory. Later, [Zory] Balayan came and said, “No, we should raise like this [shows a fist], because this is a sign of unity, it’s a fist, it’s a thing, and that victory became a fist.”

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But what I said was that the problem there was not an abstract demand for independence, but [the ability] to transform the country in such a way, in its organizational, economic, structural, management, and other directions, that when that independence wo

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We opted for the legal path on March 21 and had to do a referendum in six months, i.e. on September 21. During this period the Putsch against Gorbachev took place, the country was collapsing, the most remote republics said they were independent, the parad

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People would stand up and say that we should include our claims, the Genocide in the Constitution etc., etc. And we were saying that it was not possible, because we did not have Russia’s protection anymore, and therefore we had to have some kind of relati

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It was necessary to put the Karabakh issue in such international wording, in such international terminology, that it would be acceptable for international relations, for the international community.

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All of that created an environment where we felt that we could do anything, that everything was possible. There was that victorious feeling and there was no fear, no persecution.

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When the Soviet Union collapsed and you separated from Russia whether you liked it or not, you had to go to the other side, that other side should have been the West, but on your other side was the Turk.

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An independent state is first of all a responsibility. First of all, it is a responsibility. What shall we do to not harm? That was our great concern.

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We adopted the decree, but on that day, on that same day, unrest already started in the Sevan basin between Azerbaijanis and Armenians, organized in some way, after which a state of emergency was declared immediately on the same day, everything was frozen

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The environment in Armenia and Georgia differed in a very radical way from the environment of the rest of the Soviet republics, excluding of course the Baltics.

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