The spring session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) has started in Strasbourg. On April 25, during the plenary session, an online debate took place between the Armenian, Azeri, and Turkish delegates. It started when Eduard Aghajanyan, a member of the Armenian delegation to the PACE and a member of the Civil Contract faction of the National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia, stated in his speech that Azerbaijan was taking advantage of the situation in Ukraine and since February 2022, it has been subjecting the people of the border settlements of Artsakh to psychological pressure, confronting them with a humanitarian crisis.
Vladimir Vardanyan, a member of the Armenian delegation to the PACE, reminded that when Armenians around the world commemorated the victims of the Armenian Genocide on April 24, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu made the Grey Wolves gesture to the participants of a peaceful protest dedicated to the recognition of the Armenian Genocide in Uruguay.
Vladimir Vardanyan assured that Armenia has expressed its position since independence that it is in favor of normalization of relations with Turkey without preconditions and asked if the other side has such a position and readiness. Then he made the Grey Wolves gesture and said,”This is the symbol of the radical terrorist organization, the ‘Grey Wolves.’ They carry out terrorist acts against Armenians, Kurds, and other national minorities. You may ask, why am I making this gesture? Why am I deviating from the topic of the PACE Progress Report? I do not intend to deviate from the topic. We are discussing the progress of our organization, but two days ago the Turkish Foreign Minister, a high-ranking diplomat who has chaired the PACE for two years, made this gesture to the peaceful protesters.” According to Vladimir Vardanyan, this behavior hinders the normalization of Armenian-Turkish relations.
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The head of the Azerbaijani delegation to the PACE Samad Seidov accused his Armenian colleagues of deviating from the topic and said, “Why don’t you say that Mr. Cavusoglu was attacked? Why don’t you say that a statue of fascist Nzhdeh is placed in the center of Yerevan, or that one million refugees are unable to return to our liberated lands because they have been mined by Armenians?” Then he recalled that the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev and the Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan agreed on the peace agenda and said, “Cognitive dissonance arises in my mind, because your prime minister said that we agree with Azerbaijan’s proposals, and now the representatives of the Armenian delegation to the PACE speak against the position of their prime minister.” Turkish delegate Kamil Aydin tried to assert that the gesture belongs to Turkish cultural heritage, and that it is used by all Turkish politicians both right and left, and it is a symbol of the friendship.
Tatev HARUTYUNYAN
