The two anti-Armenian reports discussed at the winter session of the Parliamentary Assembly of CoE turned into a unique touchstone for that prestigious European institution.
Galust Sahakyan: Aim of anti-Armenian reports discussed at PACE was to cast a shadow on OSCE Minsk Group’s activities
STEPANAKERT, FEBRUARY 1, ARTSAKHPRESS-ARMENPRESS: President of the National Assembly (NA) Galust Sahakyan expressed such an opinion in his speech at the beginning of the NA session. “In fact, those resolutions distorting the reality, impeding the peaceful negotiation process on the Karabakh conflict were an attempt by their authors to discredit that European high platform and deliberately mislead the international community. They were also direct and indirect attempts to cast a shadow, to underestimate the OSCE Minsk Group activities and to make an institution, which has no such function and authority, as a participant of the settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh issue”, Sahakyan stated.
Galust Sahakyan reminded that prior to the discussions of the resolutions the OSCE Minsk Group had issued a statement once again reminding that the OSCE Minsk Group is the only format for the solution and negotiations on the problem. “They had urged not to take steps which will harm the OSCE Minsk Group mandate or complicate the continuing negotiation process”, Galust Sahakyan said, adding that in the statement adopted at the regular sitting of the EU-Armenia Parliamentary Cooperation Committee (PCC) it was noted the European Parliament fully supports the negotiation process going on under the auspices of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs, which is the only internationally recognized format of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict settlement.
Galust Sahakyan noted that the developments preceding the discussions of those resolutions and the results of the discussions showed that the parliamentary diplomacy is a genuinely strong weapon, which never loses its significance, and which we can reasonably use. “Moreover, it refers to both the members of our delegation and our colleagues not involved in it, who made great efforts to wreck those resolutions”, NA President said.
On January 26, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) rejected the report prepared by British parliamentarian Robert Walter (he is no longer PACE member-edit.) “Escalation of violence in Nagorno-Karabakh and the other occupied territories of Azerbaijan". 66 MPs voted in favor and 70 MPs against the report.
At the same time, the PACE adopted rapporteur Milica Marković’s (Bosnia and Herzegovina) draft resolution on “Inhabitants of frontier regions of Azerbaijan are deliberately deprived of water” after making some changes and revisions to the draft. 98 MPs voted for, 71 – against. 40 MPs abstained.
