Head of the Armenian delegation to PACE Hermine Naghdalyan about the PACE voting
Of the non-Armenophile reports entered to the agenda of the winter session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), although with the ratio of 66 votes “for” and 70 “against”, Robert Walter’s report on “The escalation of violence in Nagorno-Karabakh and other occupied territories of Azerbaijan” was rejected but the report by the rapporteur Milica Marković (Bosnia) on “The inhabitants of bordering regions of Azerbaijan are deliberately deprived of water”, with the ration of 98 votes “for” and 71 “against”, was adopted.
This document – the resolution 2085 – contains no less dangerous formulations. In particular, Article 4 enshrines, “The Assembly deplores the occupation by Armenia of Nagorno-Karabakh and other adjacent areas of Azerbaijan.” Article 7.1 reads, “The Assembly requests the immediate withdrawal of Armenian armed forces from the region concerned.” Also calls for the Armenian authorities to cease using water resources as tools of political influence or an instrument of pressure benefiting only one of the parties to the conflict. The document also states that the Assembly firmly condemns the lack of co-operation of the Armenian parliamentary delegation and the Armenian authorities during the preparation of the report on this issue. Although a member of the Armenian delegation to PACE, RPA faction MP Samvel Farmanyan, before the voting, made about 15 addendum-recommendations, but they were not accepted, and the non-Armenophile wordings were preserved in the non-Armenophile report. The fact that these wordings were preserved was confirmed by the Head of the Armenian delegation to PACE Hermine Naghdalyan, in an interview with “Aravot”.
To the question of why it was not possible to prevent the adoption of this report, Ms. Naghdalyan responded, “The majority of the PACE parliamentarians, however, saw the main problem – Walter’s report, and considered it such an agenda issue, a major issue that they gave a solution to it in the first place. The Sarsang issue was viewed as a social, water, sectoral and humanitarian problem, and in this sense, the Europeans seemed to be a little loyal.” To our question of whether thus the PACE vote was more of a victory for us or a defeat, Ms. Naghdalyan replied she does not quite accept this terminology as the fight is going on every day and it is a front where “you should constantly be in the post.”
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Ms. Naghdalyan noted that Walter’s report was an attempt of complete and complex solution parallel to the Minsk Group and an attempt to present all once denied complex desires of Azerbaijan in one place that rejects the approaches of the Minsk Group and to pass them in one document. And in this sense, the importance of this report is not comparable with the Sarsang report, “This seems to be a sub-report, as if a consequence of the report or a more sectoral report issue as with the help of the Sarsang report, an attempt was made to solve the political problems by raising the issue of water or to offer solutions.”
Ms. Naghdalyan noted that after April, driven by suggesting sanctions against the Russian delegation to PACE, Azerbaijanis went ahead for a new attack, which in conjunction with one report, in the form of Walter’s report was put on the table. Ms. Naghdalyan explained, “Until April, Azerbaijan did not nurse a hope of having anything other than the water problem, after April, the hopes grew so much that they wanted to have a document that is complete, comprehensive and radically denies the Minsk Group principles and suggests contradictory solutions, and they made an attempt to implement it.”
To our observation that despite the great efforts by the Armenian side, Azerbaijan nevertheless achieved its goal and had a report in the PACE with its desired wording, Ms. Naghdalyan replied, “Azerbaijan has long ago received these terms from this structure. I do not think that initiating this issue specifically for them is their main goal. Azerbaijan has received these formulations much earlier, in other documents, not on social and humanitarian issues but in the reports on more fundamental problems.”
Tatev HARUTYUNYAN, “Aravot” daily
