MP urges legal review of Hovhannisyan’s WWII remarks

PanARMENIAN.Net - Armenian MP and Armenia faction secretary Artsvik Minasyan has called on the Prosecutor General to launch an investigation and provide a legal assessment of statements made by Ministry of Defense representative Artsrun Hovhannisyan regarding the significance of the Battle of Stalingrad for the Armenian people.

Minasyan described Hovhannisyan’s comments as a distortion of history and an attempt to justify Nazi Germany, according to Pastinfo.am.

He further stated that citizens are demanding an explanation as to why lawmakers have not proposed measures to subject senior officials to psychiatric evaluation and to implement such procedures regularly.

“Let’s assess what’s the more legitimate demand—proposing legislation or taking over the function of justice? I believe proposing legislation is,” Minasyan said.

He also asserted that corruption, which he called a natural consequence of the current authorities, cannot be attributed to the opposition. Linking the opposition to corruption, he said, is “absolute nonsense.”

In a Public TV broadcast, Hovhannisyan had claimed Turkey lacked the military strength to attack during World War II and had only a neutrality agreement with Germany, supplying certain materials but lacking the capacity to open a new front in the Caucasus.

He added that Germany had a detailed plan: if successful at Stalingrad, they intended to move through the Caucasus, invade Turkey from both Bulgaria and Armenia, using Armenian legions formed from prisoners of war. He said figures like Garegin Nzhdeh and Drastamat Kanayan worked with the Germans to form these legions, though they never saw significant combat.