YEREVAN. March 30 (Interfax) - Armenian President Armen Sarkissian has said that his actions and decisions in relation to the situation involving Armenian Armed Forces General Staff Chief Onik Gasparyan were right.
"As a result of my meetings with Onik Gasparyan and generals, it became clear that they were not going to make any moves except their statement [demanding Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan's resignation]. I heard such things from them at those meetings about the state of affairs in the army that were a novelty to me. And I understood following those meetings that there was a constitutional problem," Sarkissian said in an interview with Armenia's Aravot newspaper.
The president has said that his decision against upholding Pashinyan's proposal to remove Gasparyan from his position was the right move, as was the application to the Constitutional Court.
"We did the right thing for both the country and the stability of the state. And in the search for the correct solution, we reached out to the Constitutional Court. That made it possible for Onik Gasparyan and some others to apply to the Administrative Court," Sarkissian said.
As reported earlier, Administrative Court Judge Mher Petrosyan temporarily granted the lawsuit lodged by Gasparyan and adopted interim measures, recognizing Gasparyan's dismissal from his post by force of law as noncompliant with existing legal relations, pending the court's final judgment in this case.
Thus, the Administrative Court's ruling bans appointing a new General Staff chief, allowing Gasparyan to continue fulfilling his duties as General Staff chief.
However, Pashinyan said on March 22 that Artak Davtyan had been appointed to the post of chief of the General Staff of the Armenian Armed Forces by force of law.
The Armenian Prosecutor General's Office said on March 24 that it had received a request from Gasparyan to open a criminal case against Pashinyan and Defense Minister Vagharshak Harutyunyan over Davtyan's appointment as General Staff chief.
As reported earlier, Gasparyan is demanding that a criminal case be opened against Pashinyan and Harutyunyan on a count of "abuse of power accidentally entailing grave consequences."
Petrosyan, in turn, has alerted the Supreme Judicial Council about the threats he says he has been receiving. His complaint has been forwarded to the Prosecutor General's Office, which, in turn, has referred it to the criminal police.