Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) yet did not make a political decision to implement monitoring in Turkey. This is the reason why we should not be particularly encouraged and consider it a victory that the Assembly, two days ago, with 96 votes “for”, 24 “against” and 10 “abstained” in the PACE summer plenary session passed the report on “The functioning of democratic institutions in Turkey”. Here, the freedom of expression in Turkey is criticized, it emphasizes the urgent solution to the issue of persecutions and problems in ensuring democracy. There is a concern that many parliamentarians are deprived of immunity, thousands of websites are blocked and so on. The Armenian delegation to PACE voted unequivocal to the report.
In particular, Head of the Armenian delegation to the PACE, Hermine Naghdalyan and RPA parliamentary faction MP Samvel Farmanyan voted “for” to the report. The Head of the ARF faction Armen Rustamyan and PAP party leader Naira Zohrabyan voted “against” to the report. Eventually, should we be encouraged by the fact of the adoption of the report as many people do, or we need more to judge coolheaded? RPA faction MP Hamlet Harutyunyan, however, sees a positive trend in this fact. In an interview with “Aravot” newspaper, he noted that the PACE cannot consider our opinion and make such decisions that we are pleased. Then, he said, “The fact that a resolution has been passed on Turkey is a positive trend. Europe always has reservations against Turkey and is careful to build relations with Turkey. I do not think that any European institution at this stage would make a rapid decision on Turkey.” Mr. Harutyunyan, on the one hand, does not see any sense to be encouraged by the report, on the other hand, the positive trend according to him is obvious. Hamlet Harutyunyan stated that Turkey is initialing an attack with its little brother to European institutions, and these countries simply deny the European values.
“Heritage” faction MP Tevan Poghosyan thinks that a victory will be when the PACE adopts a pro-Armenian report, or for example, a representative of Nagorno-Karabakh will be present at the PACE. According to Mr. Poghosyan, there were all the grounds for the PACE to pass a decision on conducting monitoring in Turkey, “The fact that Erdoğan sues reporters and media throughout the day, sends 40 thousand soldiers to the Kurdish settlements, whereas if one-tenth is accumulated, then they consider it a war. All these issues should have induced PACE to make a decision on the monitoring in Turkey.” According to the lawmaker, this is not done because Europe has a number of problems with Turkey to solve, particularly, the issue of the refugees.
We asked whether the votes of the Armenian delegation, both “pro” and “cons” were justified. According to Mr. Poghosyan, the matter is not the position of the Armenian delegation but the whole structure. The “cons” are understandable for Mr. Poghosyan. He explained, “I understand the logic of my colleagues that it becomes a piece of paper which will be used for deception to say that such a thing has been adopted. The “pros” are also understandable for it was done at least to ensure that such a type of document can be. But this does not mean that the fight is prevented.”
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Tatev HARUTYUNYAN
