Former 9/11 Commissioners In Armenia to Help with Probe

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While in Yerevan, the experts will hold meetings not only with commission members, but also with different officials and the country’s prosecutor-general. However, according to a statement released by the US Embassy, they “will not directly assist in any inquiry or investigationconcerning events in Armenia. They will not conduct an assessment or report about the efforts underway in Armenia.”

“The commission should find its own way, we can only speak about our experience,” Kojm said.

The event gave rise to discussions across Armenia’s political field.

Arman Musinyan, a spokesman for Armenia’s first president and current opposition leader Levon Ter-Petrosian, questioned the purpose of the experts’ visit.

“If they are not involved in the commission, if they are not going to make any assessment or present any report, what usefulness can we talk about then? They have come to tell about their memories, so let them do that,” Musinyan said. Anahit Bakhshyan, a member of the sole opposition Heritage faction in the Armenian
Parliament and head of the party’s political council, says that the March 1-2 commission wants to legitimize its activities with the visit of the experts.

“They want to show that they are doing work, but as a matter of fact, it cannot be useful,” she says.

Meanwhile, Suren Surenyants, a senior member of the radical opposition Hanrapetutyun party, expresses a hope that the arrival of the experts “will force the commission to make fewer distortions.”

“The fact of the sending of experts is important. It means that the outside world has serious mistrust towards the commission and this will perhaps have a sobering effect on them,” Surenyants said.

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