On January 26, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) Council of Europe rejected the anti-Armenian report on “Escalation of violence in Nagorno-Karabakh and the other occupied territories of Azerbaijan” by rapporteur Robert Walter (UK) by 70 votes against 66 votes for and adopted the second anti-Armenian report on “Inhabitants of frontier regions of Azerbaijan are deliberately deprived of water” by rapporteur Milica Marković (Bosnia and Herzegovina).
In an interview with Aravot.am, political analyst Gagik Hambaryan expressed his opinion that rapporteur Robert Walter’s report was rejected because it was considered to be political. “Rejecting Robert Walter’s report, the PACE tried not to make the Minsk Group co-chairs angry. As to why the rapporteur Milica Marković’s report was adopted regarding the Sarsang reservoir, if you were attentive, during the discussions, the rapporteur and the Committee member who was constantly talking against parliamentarian Samvel Farmanyan’s proposals on making amendments to the resolution, was constantly noting that it is a social and nature protection matter. In other words, what do we see here? The PACE made the score 1:1, by rejecting “political” rapporteur Walter’s report, but at the same time adopting Milica Marković’s report which allegedly is social. Thus, the PACE probably thought that it satisfied both Armenia’s and Azerbaijan’s interests, as well as attempted not to make the Minsk Group Co-Chairs angry.
Actually, it happened what happened to the European Court of Human Rights by case “Perinçek v. Switzerland”. In other words, Armenia’s demands were met, but Switzerland was made to annul the decision against Perinçek. It is the same 1:1 option. I was watching the debates live on television, the majority was absolutely not interested in the debates nor listened to the arguments of the rapporteurs, a few delegates were speaking and about 200 people were voting. In other words, looking at the faces of the majority of them, you could understand that they are instructed to reject this one and to adopt the other one. Allegedly, the bigger danger containing report – Robert Walter’s report was, and allegedly, more liberal and humanitarian report by rapporteur Milica Marković, prepared with emotional appeals was adopted.
In fact, there are also political dangerous elements in this report. It openly says that Karabakh is occupied by Armenians,” interprets Gagik Hambaryan. And getting such reports to PACE containing anti-Armenian content, according to the political analyst, has different reasons. The reason is not only the oil-caviar diplomacy of Azerbaijan or the PACE corrupt ambitions but the disorganization manner of our delegation and uncoordinated actions of our interests-protectors in these matters. “It is true that at the last moment, our diplomats, our European institutions of the Diaspora were very actively involved to annul the adoption of these two anti-Armenian reports in the PACE session but still I must say that their importance was not so big as the statement of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs on January 22.
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Why such resolutions are adopted, I must say that this is not the first time when the PACE adopts anti-Armenian reports, Lord Russell Johnston, David Atkinson, Göran Lindblad, Jordi Xuclà i Costa were also there who once were preparing reports both on Armenia and Azerbaijan. We should not forget that now the PACE President is elected Pedro Agramunt who is one of the closest European politicians to Ilham Aliyev and one of the PACE deputies who is the most to use the oil-caviar diplomacy, hence, this is not new for us but the point is what for. There are various reasons, firstly, the corruption is very popular in PACE and there are many deputies who use the oil-caviar diplomacy of Azerbaijan.
They are not even interested in where Armenia and Artsakh are, many of them do not even know the location of our two countries. The problem is that the Azerbaijanis are bribing them in a different way, it’s not that they are distributing caviar, make free visits to Azerbaijan to get precious gifts, and transfer huge amounts to their personal accounts. It is openly talked that already former British deputy Robert Walter has already received a Turkish citizenship from the Turkish government for preparing the anti-Armenian report. And this citizenship was granted to him no more no less by the current Turkish foreign minister, Çavuşoğlu. Serbian deputy Milica Marković has received expensive Swiss watches.” Gagik Hambaryan adds also the weak work of our delegation to these facts. “Hermine Naghdalyan’s silent diplomacy is a shame. One and a half years ago when Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev was delivering a speech at the PACE, our Vice-Speaker of the National Assembly, for some reason, decided that no member of the Armenian delegation should ask a question. I first time hear that they want to solve some issues with a silent diplomacy. Who suffered from Ms. Naghdalyan I do not know, but whatever it be, this was the illogical peak by the head of our delegation. When someone from the Armenian side is hosted by the PACE, Azerbaijani MPs directly attack our representatives: be it President Serzh Sargsyan or the Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandyan. And our delegation is silent, for whom, no one understood, maybe Ms. Naghdalyan did not understand either why she was silent. The result of such illogical moves was the defeat of our delegation at the PACE. I regret that the Diaspora has just joined us against these reports when it could be done in October when they were discussed at the PACE, why now, in the winter session.”
In response to our observation that British MP Robert Walter seems to blame Hermina Naghdalyan for his visit to Armenia which according to him was constantly extending his visit, Gagik Hambaryan said, “Yes, it can the reason, Artsakh President’s spokesman wanted to justify that they are not allowed to visit because the headings of the reports were not meeting the reality. You could invite, show and explain that Nagorno-Karabakh cannot be self-occupied because by the date of 1989 census, the population of Nagorno-Karabakh consisted of 76 per cent Armenians and Artsakh could not be self-occupied. Armenians cannot occupy the territory where they made the majority for centuries. Or, it is possible to easily explain, the territories that Azerbaijan has lost, it was a result of a war which it had imposed on us. If we think so, then the Soviet Union, the Great Britain, the USA and France are also occupants because, in the World War II, they defeated Germany and occupied its territories. Now who is to blame: Stalin with Churchill and Roosevelt?… We can call them, invite and explain in the spot, shoot all these and then present that they are working in favor of Azerbaijan. We constantly say that they have not come and they say that you have not allowed.”
According to the analyst, these reports no matter they do not affect the Karabakh conflict settlement, they were consultancy reports and are not binding to any PACE member state, however, may have a big negative impact on the propaganda.
Nune AREVSHATYAN
