The anti-Armenian report accepted by the Political Affairs Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) entitled “The rise in violence in Nagorno-Karabakh and other occupied territories of Azerbaijan” generated major concerns, moreover, most likely it will be adopted in the PACE winter session in January. Aravot.am was curious asking the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Armenian National Congress, Vladimir Karapetyan, what resulted the report, whether it was the flaw of the Armenian delegation and in the foreign policy sector, or the double standards operating by the PACE. He replied, “The document you mentioned has been approved by the PACE Political Committee and is no longer a draft of the resolution that is going to be discussed at the PACE January session. A shameful wording and one-sided from top to end. It is well known that the initiation of such documents and the formation is long years of work, in which the top state structures of the two countries are involved. In fact, this is not the delegates’ fight but the states, and in that respect, the first responsible for these wording is Serzh Sargsyan, his foreign political team, along with the head of the staff and numerous diplomatic advisers and assistants, and then only comes the foreign ministry and finally the RPA MPs of the PACE delegation who function on such matters by the instructions of the foreign policy-makers.”
Mr. Karapetyan is sure that if this resolution is passed, it will be the peak of the negative outcomes of Serzh Sargsyan’s tenure. Addressing the justifications, Mr. Karapetyan said, “And the justifications that repeat by their style the Azerbaijanis comments after the summer session when the anti-Azerbaijani resolution was accepted are only for the internal consumption and are called to conceal the biggest diplomatic failure.” A number of anti-Armenian provisions are prescribed in the report. For example, it calls to “convene a Minsk Group plenary session, and define an interim status for Nagorno-Karabakh and ensure its security and internal self-government, as well as to “create an agreed corridor between Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh and undertake other confidence-building measures, including a corridor to Nakhchivan”.
Judging by these provisions whether we can say that this is a very dangerous report for Armenia and will always be used by Azerbaijan for the implementation of an anti-Armenian politics. Vladimir Karapetyan responded, “The Armenian public first time learned the term “a corridor to Nakhchivan”. It could not emerge from the air, it is possible that it is also offered by Azerbaijan at the negotiations table.” Talking about the fate of the draft resolution, Mr. Karapetyan said, “The Armenian side should do everything to prevent accepting it, otherwise the fragile balance of the position will be broken in favor of Azerbaijan, which is fraught with unpredictable consequences.”
Tatev HARUTYUNYAN
