Azernews.Az

"I will take part in next year's elections. It is time to say everything as it is. It is payback time for the authorities," he told an opposition rally downtown Yerevan on Friday joined by thousands of supporters.
He reiterated his terse criticism of President Robert Kocharian's team stated late in September.
"This government wallows in corruption. A small group of people in the authorities has secured its thriving life by stealing the people blind," Ter-Petrosian said.
Some 20,000 people joined the protest on the Freedom Square in the capital city, Armenian sources said. Local commentators say the high interest was triggered by previous announcements that Ter-Petrosian would address the rally.
The former president has been in the background of developments since being toppled with the aid of incumbent president Kocharian and prime minister Serzh Sarkisian in 1998. Ter-Petrosian pounded a wave of criticism at the current authorities during a rally of the Nationwide Armenian Movement that he heads on September 21.
Meanwhile, attacks on Ter-Petrosian's supporters continued. A day before the rally - on Thursday - several activists of his movement were detained in the center of Yerevan with leaflets calling on citizens to participate in the upcoming protest. The activists were taken to a police precinct, but released later in the day.
This followed the detention on October 23 of nine opposition leaders planning to support Ter-Petrosian during the presidential ballot next year. The leader of the "Impeachment" political bloc Nikol Pashaian, chairman of the Democratic Motherland party Petros Makeian, and leader of Conservative party Mikael Arapartian as well as the editor-in-chief of the opposition "Haykakan Zhamanak" (The Armenian Times) newspaper were detained for urging people to take to the streets.
A local study released in September concluded that 37% of the Armenian population backed the candidacy of Ter-Petrosian, while 23% - the leader of the Heritage party Raffi Ovanesian, and only 5% - the incumbent premier Sarkisian.
Ter-Petrosian was born in Halab, Syria (present-day Aleppo) in 1945. A PhD in science, he graduated from the Yerevan State University and completed a post-graduate degree at the Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) Oriental Studies Institute. He was one of the masterminds of taking Upper Garabagh away from Azerbaijan. He had served as Armenian president in 1990-1998. He was forced to resign due to his slant toward a stage-by-stage option to settle the Garabagh conflict.