“Our Azerbaijani partners simply needed to demonstrate to the domestic public opinion that they are doing some actions. But this question in the sense of PACE procedures can be extended up to asking the question, being touched in the speech, but more serious references than this, I mean for the speech or a new initiative, other types of questions are necessary”, – such opinion was expressed by the Head of the Armenian delegation to PACE Hermine Naghdalyan, in response to the question of Aravot.am of whether there is no concern that the Azerbaijani delegation members to PACE will continue developing the issue of the Azerbaijani subversives, especially since a question on this subject was raised yesterday.
Note that yesterday, after the speech of Belgian Foreign Minister Didier Reynders, the Head of the Azerbaijani delegation to PACE asked him a question on this matter, but the Foreign Minister gave a cold response. In this respect, Mrs. Naghdalyan said, “Belgian Foreign Minister responded in a way that it was clear that there is no subject here. Our understanding was that of course, especially in the PACE, when high-rank officials, representatives of the Committee of Ministers or presiding countries’ officials are invited, the delegates have the right to refer with a question. But it appeared from the answer that the question does not fall within the type of resonance and significant ones, by which they are compelled and obligated to give a clear answer.”
We were interested to know about the phase of the preparation of the report on Karabakh, since such a decision was made in the previous session. Mrs. Naghdalyan informed, “Now, the speaker, Robert Voltaire, has started the preparation work. In compliance with the procedures of the Council of Europe, the speaker’s preparation work may take up to two years, if otherwise is decided by PACE. In these days, Mr. Voltaire prepares his vision of what type of problems and question he is going to address and what kind of actions he should implement. And during this week, he will present his vision in one of the subsequent sessions of the Commission, which will approve the visits to the region and the implementation of the program.”
To our question of whether the Armenian delegation cooperates with the speaker, Mrs. Naghdalyan replied, “Still in October, we have published our political posture on this matter, which says that we do not think that this report can have a balanced and equitable process, and we believe that such a report is fraught of prospective of endangering the negotiations within the Minsk Group. Based on this, the Armenian delegation has made a decision not to cooperate with the speaker. We have also informed the speaker during our conversation that all the questions pertaining to this report should be discussed with Nagorno-Karabakh authorities.”
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Hermine Naghdalyan also informed us that although no issue about Armenia is planned by the PACE winter session, nevertheless, our delegation members are actively working in the Commissions. Afterwards, she concluded, “The works of the Assembly is not only the plenary session, but the expression of these works. But many discussions are held in political groups, which are actively attended by the members of our delegation.”
Tatev HARUTYUNYAN
