The moratorium was violated before it was announced

  Yesterday, the Azerbaijani delegates to the PACE made another statement accusing Armenia in Strasburg

 Yesterday, the PACE spring session was opened – along with that not only the Monitoring Committee will discuss the issue concerning Armenia, but it is also decided to gather a special committee meeting concerning the NK issue. Yesterday two Armenian delegates considering the latter circumstance, when the report of the Assembly Bureau was being discussed, mentioned that special committee. First was Armen Rostomyan, who stated that there was little possibility that the institution would work until Azerbaijan denied all forms of cooperation. He also reminded that the Council of Europe practiced inviting all the sides to discussions and suggested to involve in the committee the representatives of Nagorno-Karabakh too. If not, according to him Armenia cannot participate in the committee sessions. The next speech was made by the head of the Armenian delegation to the PACE Davit Harutyunyan, who reminded that on January 28 making the decision of reestablishing the special committee on NK issue, “The Bureau mysteriously lost the trails of the Armenian delegation’s letter and visibly rejected the position and objections of the side directly involved. One cannot expect serious positive effects from a forced process. Since the chairman of the Assembly decided to keep the position of the Armenian delegation under his carpet, I shall repeat our position in front of all representatives.” And made public the arguments of the above mentioned letter (“Aravot”, January 28), particularly, “We doubt the honest, impartial and fair reasons of reestablishing this special committee.” Davit Harutyunyan stated once again that the ease of tensions existing in the relations of the two delegations would be first minimum step, in order to have real contribution to the peace-building process, “Now in the atmosphere of existing intolerance and attempts to use the Assembly as a source of provoking propaganda, the special committee is an open invitation to seriously harm the negotiation process and to upset the efforts to resolve the conflict peacefully and through negotiations. The Armenian delegation cannot be in charge of this kind of irresponsibility.” At the end of the speech, he repeated the suggestion made by the Armenian delegation, “We offer to announce a full moratorium to any mutual accusative statements made by any member of Armenian and Azerbaijani delegations concerning any question related to the conflict.” Davit Harutyunyan also suggested to simultaneously continue the two-sided discussions between the delegations, “Through the mediation of some third party, but not the PACE Chairman, Bureau or the newly appointed head of the committee of yours.” A little later, the Azerbaijani delegate Ganira Pashayeva made a speech, which destroyed all hopes of establishing “a verbal ceasefire”. She particularly stated that the Armenian armed forces “have recently killed a nine-year-old village boy on the occupied territories” of Azerbaijan.  And demanded that the PACE delegates condemn the actions of Armenia signing a written memo, “The Armenian delegates have to apologize to the Assembly for this murder.” She also mentioned the building of an airport in Stepanakert and that the president of the RA said that he will be the first flight passenger, “The Armenian authorities should avoid this kind of rhetoric.” In the afternoon when Thorbjorn Jagland, the Secretary General of the Council of Europe was making a speech in front of the PACE delegates Ganira Pashayeva tried to find out how he treated “the killing of the nine-year-old boy”, but he said, “I will not react to that special question.”

Then Rafayel Huseynov asked a question why the CE did not punish Armenia for “Occupying 20% of the Azerbaijani territories, creating terrorist camps and growing narcotics”. Thorbjorn Jagland answered that the resolution of that conflict is the concern of the Minsk Group, part of which the Council of Europe never had been. And stressed that the human rights issues should be paid more attention to in the areas of “the frozen conflicts”.