The plenary winter session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) passed Volodymyr Ariyev’s report “Attack on Journalists and Free Speech in Media in Europe”, with 100 votes “pro” and 15 “cons”. Aravot.am asked the Head of the Armenian delegation to PACE, Hermine Naghdalyan, that the report (paragraph 9) contained problematic wording for Armenia, especially “the territories which are under the control of separatist regime, particularly the Nagorno-Karabakh”, so whether it will not harm Armenia and why it was not possible to prevent such terms appear in the report.
Mrs. Naghdalyan explained that they were having discussions in different committees the day before until midnight, which ended up with two proposals: one signed by the Armenian delegation and the other by Europeans but to no avail. At the same time, Mrs. Naghdalyan indicated that such wording is found in the PACE document back in 2005, in 14/16 resolution. And then she told, When we were debating with them, we were saying that this provision gives nothing to them although it exists since 2005, hence, why you are including it again. They replied in return, it is there anyway, so what is the difference, let it be in this report too.”
Mrs. Naghdalyan assures that the reality is that the Council of Europe and PACE have nothing to do with the conflicts, “Everybody has understood it after Walter’s report, the President of Cyprus is saying, the CoE Secretary-General is saying that PACE has nothing to do with the conflicts.” Mrs. Naghdalyan interprets that since the Azerbaijani side has no success in the Minsk Group processes, hence it is trying to use this platform.
To our reversal that the Armenian side is not capable to, for example, to pass anti-Azerbaijani resolutions or at least to prevent the anti-Armenian resolutions, Mrs. Naghdalyan responded, “We do not have such a task. The direction of our work is that we must push our country’s democracy and human rights protection mechanisms ahead which is also the goal of this organization, we must push these values forward.” As an evidence, of her words, Hermine Naghdalyan said that the mentioned report which refers to freedom of media does not contain any reproach against Armenia, “The only sentence related to us is this problem which by some order and interest was entered without any connection with the report.”
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To our observation whether Azerbaijan has bribed the author of the report, Ukrainian delegate Volodymyr Ariyev, Mrs. Naghdalyan replied that it is not only the bribery this time. “Earlier, when the issue referred only to Karabakh-Azerbaijan, a number of delegates supported us but this time, other conflicts are included, therefore, those many who supported us in the past were unable to do it now.”
