Statement of Abel Aganbekyan, economist in Paris, on Karabagh
I expect that in the context of perestroika the question of the annexation of Karabagh and Nakhichevan to Armenia will find its solution
[…]
As a specialist I am interested in the economic dimension of the issue and according to my analysis from the economic point of view, Karabagh is closer to Armenia than to Azerbaijan and not the other way around. I have written a letter in this respect to the government and of course this is my counsel as a scientist who does not have a governmental position… but I do believe that this issue will be resolved.
[Aganbekyan indicated that the Soviet Union has recognized the Genocide of the Armenians and that he was a close friend of the late historian John Kirakosian, Foreign Minister of Soviet Armenia before his death two years ago. In this interview, Aganbekyan also discussed the environmental pollution in Armenia and particularly the Medzamor Nuclear Plant.]
[Masis, Los Angeles, December 5, 1987]
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Excerpts from interview by Zori Balayan, Liternaturnaya Gazeta Yerevan correspondent, with Abel Aganbekyan, chief economic advisor to Secretary Gorbachev and member of the USSR Academy of Sciences
“Along the Paths of Renewal”
Balayan: Abel Gezevich! The CPSU Central Committee January Plenum oriented the party and all the people toward deepening and expending the restructuring that has begun. I would like to ask you, has the very essence of the restructuring become clearer today?
Aganbekyan: I think it has. The plenum formulated the ultimate objective of the restructuring. It is a question of the renewal of all aspects of our society’s life and of revealing to the full the creative potential of the socialist system.
Balayan: To be more specific about the future of our economy, can any particular fundamental features be singled out?
Aganbekyan: The economy of the future is above all a system in which production is entirely subordinated to the satisfaction of social needs. There are no shortages. The market for means of production and objects of consumption is saturated. The consumer chooses whatever is advantageous to him.
Moreover it is an economy of the intensive type, receptive to the achievements of scientific and technical progress. Naturally, it is also a social economy, for people. Finally, it is a democratic economy, an economy of self-management by the people.
[…]
[“Along the Paths of Renewal,” Pravda, February 25, 1987]
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Statement of Abel Aganbekyan, chief economic advisor to General Secretary Gorbachev, on the scope of reforms
“Architect of Perestroika Sells It in The West”
[…]
Mr. Aganbekyan came to New York to say openly what was once unthinkable for a Soviet economist to express: that the Soviet Union must change its ways to survive. He even expressed a readiness to learn from the experiments of China and Hungry. Perestroika, said Mr. Gorbachev’s economic guru, “means nothing less than the total restructuring not just of the economy but of society in an extremely radical way.”
[Christopher Wren in the New York Times, February 28, 1988]
The Karabagh File, Documents and Facts, 1918-1988, First Edition, Cambridge Toronto 1988, by the ZORYAN INSTITUTE, edited by: Gerard J. LIBARIDIAN, pp. 66-70.
