“The estimates are preliminary. In fact, it is not an estimate rather than listing of the situation, news and their impressions. Much importance is given to the upcoming events, including the stance of the political forces to the constitutional reforms. The main tasks are also the issues related to judicial and justice systems reforms, transparency in police activities and the underway operations thereof. The positive thing is that, despite Armenia is in war now, it has passed the law on alternative service, which is in force and does not cause any serious comments and objections for the other parties”, said the leader of ARF faction, Armen Rustamyan, in the conversation with Aravot.am, referring to discussions held in the PACE Monitoring Committee.
Note that on September 3, at the PACE Monitoring Committee closed-door session, the co-rapporteurs on Armenia, Axel Fischer and Alan Mill, presented the results of their visit to Armenia on June 16-18. The Monitoring Committee closed-door session was attended by the Head of the Armenian delegation to PACE, Hermine Naghdalyan, and a delegation member, Armen Rustamyan, representing Armenia.
According to our interlocutor, further on also the Azerbaijani delegate, in his speech, tried to distort the facts by presenting allegedly a great violation that the President of Armenia has visited NKR, that the Syrian-Armenian refugee are relocated in these areas and so on. In his response, Armen Rustamyan had noted that the visits to NKR or the fact that Armenia is dealing with relocation of refugees, instead of introducing it as violations, Azerbaijan should stop causing a misunderstanding to the CE, give up with its practice of a “black list”, which includes also some delegates present at the session.
When presenting the border situation, the Azerbaijani delegate cast the blame totally to the Armenian side. “We presented the reality that the real violation and infringement of the value system is just the escalation of the war, which Azerbaijan is currently doing in front of everyone’s eyes. I directly told him, you attacked, naturally you were pushed back, naturally you have loses, much more than our side. First to attack, then having losses after the attack and then to come here and complain? This is just an Azerbaijani logic. It’s enough to put this structure into misunderstanding, lead a direction suitable to your campaign,” said Armen Rustamyan.
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Later on, a discussion on Azerbaijan was held, the main theme of which was the presence of political prisoners in our neighboring country. “The most ridiculous thing was that Leyla Yunus is accused of conveying confidential information in favor of Armenia, and is considered to be a traitor. The events took such a turn that we defend Leyla Yunus, but there are people who know her as a defender of human rights and so on,” said Armen Rustamyan, adding that the Azerbaijani side is acting followed by the same logic: to use the NKR conflict to get rid of all such issues. “Now, they have introduced the notion of the “fifth column” in the list, and everyone who, in their opinion, are exercising betrayal, are included in this list.”
To the question of what was the attitude of the members of the Monitoring Committee to these discussions, Armen Rustamyan responded that it was obvious to everyone that an event happened just a month ago cannot be turned upside down and push the Azerbaijan’s viewpoint forward. “But we all know what kind of serious lobbying Azerbaijan conducts in the Council of Europe and this is our biggest challenge,” he said. And to the question of what expectations are there pertaining to the final documents, Armen Rustamyan said that for example, rapporteur in Azerbaijan issue stated that he was given recordings of the talk, etc. with the third party, which he cannot but consider. “To think that in the future a more complete and comprehensive assessment will be given to both Armenia’s and Azerbaijan’s processes, I am not optimistic as I know how the voting is held in the Council of Europe and under what influence they are. If once we were talking about some interest, now, these people are so deep involved into the lobby that they are implementing everything instructed to them from Baku with a military discipline. Now, we have a new quality in the Council of Europe. If a voting is expected in favor of Azerbaijan, everyone like one command are present so that there is no even a place to sit,” concluded Armen Rustamyan. To the question of so, what Armenia should do, our interlocutor said that he will talk about later on.
Nelly GRIGORYAN
