Azernews.Az

YEREVAN – The Armenian community in Los Angeles has launched a campaign aiming to bar Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan’s entry to the United States, a local television host told Aykakan Jamanak newspaper.

Rudik Hovsepyan, who hosts the Armenian language Varaguyr (Curtain) TV program in Los Angeles, said US Armenians have taken the step because they blame the deplorable social and economic situation in Armenia on its incumbent president.

He said appeals are being accepted as part of the campaign, and 10,000 to 15,000 Armenians have filed them in just three to four days. The appeals will be sent to the State Department and other US government agencies, Hovsepyan said.

President Sargsyan is due to visit Los Angeles soon over the 20th anniversary of Armenia’s independence and attend the opening of a consulate there.

In early August, President Barack Obama ordered to bar from the United States the people implicated in genocide, war crimes or human rights abuses. The decree barred the entry of any foreign national planning, ordering or supporting massive acts of violence against civilians.

Sargsyan, who admitted to his involvement in the massacre of unarmed Azerbaijanis committed by Armenians during the Karabakh war in 1992 in an interview with British journalist Thomas de Waal, could also be barred from the U.S. for a deadly crackdown on protesters in March 2008 following presidential elections in Armenia.

Armenian opposition claims that Sargsyan also has ties to the ethnic Armenian criminal groups in the U.S., one of which has committed insurance fraud that cost the US economy millions of dollars.