The policy of Ter-Petrosian towards the Armenian Diaspora did not contribute to his popularity either. He and his advisors, from the very beginning, had considered the Armenian Diaspora as helpless romantics in the political arena. According to interpretation of HHSh the Armenians in the Diaspora should not interfere with the political life of Armenia, but they have to content themselves by providing the country with financial support and "strengthen the state", which more or less meant support of the government policy. 135
Many traditional Armenian parties and organisations started to get more and more critical towards the Ter-Petrosian administration. Dashnaktsoutyoun was maybe the most critical among these organisations. The party, which since the creation of the "Karabakh Committee" and HHSh, was critical towards these organisations, itself went through some internal conflicts, but was able to survive them. After the president election in 1991 the party intensified its critique of the administration and began to attack Levon Ter-Petrosian personally.
Ter-Petrosian was now met by a harsh dissatisfaction in the Armenian parliament and when a majority of the members voted that the parliament should put the recognition of the Republic of Karabakh on its agenda, he took a bold step (It should be mentioned that the Ramgavar Party which had until this point supported the president, joined the opposition in this voting). On June 29, 1992, Ter-Petrosian gave a 90 minutes long TV speech to the nation where he accused the leaders of Dashnaktsoutyoun for collaboration with KGB and for having collected funds for Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh, which never reached their destinations. He also gave the top leaders of Dashnaktsoutyoun 48 hours to leave the country, one day before the opening of the party congress. 141 This was not only a message to Dashnaktsoutyoun – this was also a warning to the entire opposition in general and the parties in Diaspora in particular.
Another question which worsened the relations between the Diaspora and Ter-Petrosian additionally was the question of dual citizenship. The Armenians around the world assumed that with the independence of Armenia they would automatically be regarded as Armenian citizens. But Ter-Petrosian dismissed this and claimed that the measure was as a preventive measure against the possibility of the young Armenian men to flee the country and the military service. According him Armenia would then be out of an army. But this was dismissed by the majority of the political observers and the columnists. They meant that almost one million people Armenians had left the country since 1990 despite that the government did not introduced a dual citizenship. For the sons of the rich, who enriched themselves with the help of the Ter-Petrosian administration, this was a matter of couple of thousand dollars bribe to escape the military service.
The sum of these policies was the further undermining of Ter-Petrosian's support among the Diaspora. But, despite this, the financial support kept on pouring into Armenia. Tigran Sarkisian, chairman of Association of Armenian Banks, reported that a sum of $350 million dollars as financial support entered Armenia annually. 147 This figure represented almost 19 percent of country's GNP in 1998 ($1.85 billions). 40 percent of these transactions came from Russia, which meant that almost 50 percent of this sum came from West and Middle East, areas where the historical parties in the Diaspora had their old solid roots, especially in Dashnaktsoutyoun and Ramgavar. 148 According to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) the total foreign investments in Armenia, between 1991 and 1998, summed up to more than $102.8 million. In 1998, after the resignation of Ter-Petrosian and the start of a rational privatisation program which allowed more foreign investments, this figure jumped to $228 million. 149
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