Levon Ter-Petrosian
Lewon Hakobi Ter-Petrosyan ( Armenian Լևոն Հակոբի Տեր-Պետրոսյան , the English transcription also spelled Levon Ter-Petrosyan ; born January 9, 1945 in Aleppo , Syria ) is an Armenian politician ( Armenian National Congress ) and was from 1991 until his resignation in February 1998 the first president of Armenia .
Career
Levon Ter-Petrosyan was born in 1945 to Armenian parents in Aleppo, Syria, and grew up in Armenia after his family was repatriated in 1946. In 1963 he finished middle school and in 1968 he graduated from Yerevan State University with a degree in Oriental Studies (with a focus on Armenian-Assyrian Philology) . In 1972 he received his master's degree from the University of Leningrad , where he received his doctorate in 1987. From 1972 to 1978 Levon Ter-Petrosyan worked as a researcher at the Armenian Literature Institute Matenadaran , where he was science secretary from 1978 to 1985, and a senior scientist since 1985.
He is the author of more than seventy academic papers in Armenian, French and Russian . He is also a member of the Armenian Writers' Union, the “French-Asian Society”, the Mechitaristic Academy in Venice and an honorary doctorate at the University of La Verne .
His political career began in the 1960s. In February 1988 he headed the Karabakh Committee in Matenadaran. In May 1988 he participated in the Armenian Committee of the Karabakh Movement. As a result, he was arrested and was under house arrest with other members of the committee from December 10, 1988 to May 31, 1989.
In 1989, Ter-Petrosyan was elected leader of the Armenian All-National Movement , and was subsequently appointed chief executive of that organization. On August 27, 1989, he became a member of the Supreme Soviet of the Armenian Soviet Republic, of which he became chairman on August 4, 1990.
On October 16, 1991 he was elected as the first president of the Armenian Republic as a candidate of the "Armenian All-National Movement", and on September 22, 1996 he was re-elected. His popularity declined over the course of his reign because he sold Armenian electricity to Georgia to finance the war against Azerbaijan - as a result, Armenia only had electricity for four hours a day. The ban on the opposition party, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation ( Dashnaktsutiune / ARF ), and the imprisonment of its leaders, as well as the discontinuation of the country's largest newspaper, contributed to further declines in popularity.
In February 1998 he was forced to resign because he made additional concessions to Azerbaijan to resolve the conflict in the Nagorno-Karabakh region . Levon Ter-Petrosyan's minister, led by Prime Minister and later successor to the presidency, Robert Kocharyan , rejected a peace plan proposed by international mediators in September 1997, which Levon Ter-Petrosian and Azerbaijan supported. The plan was to resolve the conflict "in stages" and would have postponed the issue of the status of the region, the main point of conflict. In addition, Armenian troops should be withdrawn from Azerbaijani territory and the blockade of Armenia by Turkey and Azerbaijan should be lifted.
Since his resignation in February 1998, Ter-Petrosyan had withdrawn into private life. He has turned back to his old profession of historian and published a book on the history of Armenia in the Middle Ages, on a topic that is not politically explosive.
Surprisingly, Levon Ter-Petrosyan took part as a candidate in the Armenian presidential elections in February 2008. He was supported in the election by several opposition parties such as the Socialist People's Party of Armenia under Stepan Demirtschian, the Socialist Armenian Republican Party , the Social Democrats, the New Era party, the Azadakrum Association and the Center Party Erbe, which also has a parliamentary group. The previous Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan won the election in the first round . Ter-Petrosyan received 21.5% of the vote and accused the government of having faked the elections. He called for demonstrations for the election to be canceled. On March 1, 2008, such a mass demonstration was broken up with police violence. The state justified this with alleged coup plans by the opposition. Ter-Petrosyan was taken to his home against his will by security forces and detained there. He is now chairman of the opposition party Armenian National Congress .
In the Armenian parliamentary elections in 2012, his party got seven percent of the vote and became the third largest group behind the ruling Republican Party (44 percent) and the political force " Blooming Armenia " (30 percent) led by entrepreneur Gagik Zarukjan . However, Ter-Petrosyan renounced his mandate in favor of the former Prime Minister of Armenia, Hrant Bagratjan , since "the former president cannot accept to work in parliament."
Web links
- arf.am (English)
- What does Levon Ter-Petrosian want? accessed November 22, 2010
Individual evidence
Levon Ter-Petrosian (1991-1998) | Robert Kocharyan (1998-2008) | Serzh Sargsyan (2008-2018) | Armen Zarkissjan (since 2018)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Ter-Petrosian, Levon |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Ter-Petrosjan, Levon Hakobi (full name); Ter-Petrosyan, Levon; Լևոն Հակոբի Տեր-Պետրոսյան (Armenian) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Armenian politician, President of Armenia (1991–1998) |
| DATE OF BIRTH | January 9, 1945 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Aleppo , Syria |