Before Kazan in Strasbourg

  Serzh Sargsyan represented the position of the Armenian side, no step back from the three principles

 PACE President Mevlut Cavusoglu met Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan very warmly with big smile on his face. After greeting the Armenian delegation members, the President of the RA made a note in the “Golden” book. The journalists did not participate in the meetings with Monitoring Committee Reporter on Armenia John Prescott, EU Human Rights Commissioner Thomas Hammarberg, and then EU Secretary General Thorbjorn Jagland. After the meeting with the EU Secretary General, the president of the RA and Thorbjorn Jagland held a joint press conference. In response to an Azerbaijani journalist’s question concerning the expectations from the Kazan meeting, the president of the RA said, “I am going to Kazan in a good mood and with an expectation of a constructive conversation. We have gone through quite a long negotiation process, the positions on many issues are clear and I think the time has come for the sides to say their final viewpoint on the basic principles.”

Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan’s speech at the PACE session had grabbed attention in advance. The president of the RA stated in his speech that the most important thing that the Council of Europe contributes to the peaceful and just settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh issue is entrenching tolerance, “From this perspective we remark with pity and anxiety that on the Council of Europe territory there are still centers of racism and intolerance. Just lately, another report on Azerbaijan has reaffirmed the extreme level of Armenophobia and racism that rages in that country. It is a pity for us, for it is hard to imagine that in a Council of Europe member country can be such a situation. It is a pity, since we clearly understand that the poison of that intolerance harms mostly the society that bears it.” Speaking of the Kazan meeting the President of the RA said that on the eve of that meeting the co-chair countries made every effort in order that the basic principles of the conflict settlement are finally affirmed, “We speak of the issue solution in the way of compromise. However, in our case it turns out that he who awaits an opportunity to shoot at us is the one who must compromise. In such a situation it will be very hard to convince the Armenian society, the Karabakh society, the Armenian people who have lived there for centuries, that it is necessary to make a concession to a country where there is such an intolerable and racist attitude towards an Armenian.”

The President of the RA did not conceal that it was expected from the Council of Europe “firstly not to harm the process. Not fully informed discussions with their short-term influence give the sides an opportunity to evade the long-term solutions of the negotiations in the OSCE Minsk Group format. I am convinced that the overwhelming majority of our colleagues at the OSCE when expressed, express or will express the willing to discuss some issue related to Karabakh, then they did, do or will do it out of tenderheartedness and goodwill. However, at the same time, one cannot also rule out the possibility of steps taken under the conditions of being less informed that can really harm the whole process. Therefore, I am calling on-ask everybody to be a little more prudent. And not harming must become the main signpost.”

Only five MPs out of twenty registered in advance managed to raise their questions in front of the president of the RA. Mevlut Cavusoglu presiding over the meeting asked in advance to formulate a question within 30 seconds according to the regulations and not to make statements.

According to the PACE regulations, the speech of a president of any country and the questions following it must manage within one hour. Serzh Sargsyan spoke for around 30 minutes after which he answered the questions of the MPs. The questions that our president was asked concerned Karabakh, March 1 and the security of the Armenian nuclear plant. By the way, applause was heard after the answers to some questions. From the Armenian delegation only Zaruhi Postanjyan voiced a question saying that since 1995 no fair election had taken place in our country and whether the President of the RA intended to resign and give an opportunity for a pre-term election. After this question two Azerbaijani journalists sitting one row below us tried to sort of clap. In response, Serzh Sargsyan said that there was a real lack of confidence in the elections among the society and political forces and the society had to contribute to establishing such a confidence, nevertheless he was not going to hold a pre-term election, since there was no necessity, as well as legal grounds for that.