The sources of Regnum, an information agency, inform that the majority of the PACE representatives carrying out a monitoring mission at the presidential election in the Republic of Armenia are Baku’s lobbyists who have actively supported Azerbaijan in different situations. According to the information given by the agency’s source, many members of the PACE monitoring mission voted against the report of co-rapporteur on Azerbaijan Christopher Strasser. Karin Woldseth, the head of the mission, advisers to the mission Tadeusz Iwinski, Jean-Marie Bockel, Luca Volonte, Robert Walter, and Senad Šepić voted against the report at the time. For example, French MP Jean-Marie Bockel once came to Azerbaijan within the framework of Europe-Azerbaijan lobbying cooperation and admired the development of democracy in Azerbaijan. According to diplomatic sources, a set of European figures support the current regime in Baku for mercenary reasons, and their services are compensated not just by tours to Baku.
Thus, the agency alerts that the assessments the PACE monitoring mission will give can be used against Armenia in information warfare. www.aravot.am got clarification from the Armenian delegation to the PACE. Davit Harutyunyan, the head of the delegation, stated during a conversation with us: “I abstain from making any comments. There are factual data on the internet; you can connect to the internet and read all speeches.” Naira Zohrabyan, a member of the Armenian delegation and the secretary of the Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP) parliamentary group, in her turn, stated: “I don’t know who the members of this year’s delegation are, but when they first came, I can hardly call those persons ‘Azeri lobbyists.’ Perhaps, there are other members whom I don’t know.”
Tatev HARUTYUNYAN
