Prime Minister and Assassination
Despite ensuring that President Ter-Petrosyan's side won the disputed 1995 election, and crushing street protests against the manipulated results, Sargsyan abandoned him in late 1997 and switched his support to prime minister Robert Kocharyan, who soon took over as president.
After serving as defense minister, he was appointed prime minister on June 11 by President Kocharyan. Sargsyan was killed, however, along with parliament speaker and former communist leader Karen Demirchyan and several other politicians when gunmen, headed by journalist Nairi Hunanyan, took over the parliament building.
The other parliament members were held as hostages until the next day. A week later, Vazgen's brother, Aram Sargsyan became prime minister until May 2000. He was buried at Yerablur military cemetery.
Read more about this topic: Vazgen Sargsyan
Famous quotes containing the words prime minister, prime and/or minister:
“Sometimes it takes years to really grasp what has happened to your life. What do you do after you are world-famous and nineteen or twenty and you have sat with prime ministers, kings and queens, the Pope? What do you do after that? Do you go back home and take a job? What do you do to keep your sanity? You come back to the real world.”
—Wilma Rudolph (1940–1994)
“Sometimes it takes years to really grasp what has happened to your life. What do you do after you are world-famous and nineteen or twenty and you have sat with prime ministers, kings and queens, the Pope? What do you do after that? Do you go back home and take a job? What do you do to keep your sanity? You come back to the real world.”
—Wilma Rudolph (1940–1994)
“Rosalynn said, “Jimmy, if we could only get Prime Minister Begin and President Sadat up here on this mountain for a few days, I believe they might consider how they could prevent another war between their countries.” That gave me the idea, and a few weeks later, I invited both men to join me for a series of private talks. In September 1978, they both came to Camp David.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)