“At the PACE Committee on Migration, Refugees and Displaced Persons, of which I am a member, Paul Gavan was confirmed as the rapporteur on the Lachin Corridor issue, and the committee authorized him to visit the region,” Hayk Mamijanyan, a member of the PACE Armenian delegation, told Aravot. It should be noted that the consent between Armenia and Azerbaijan is also necessary to organize Paul Gavan’s visit.
Hayk Mamijanyan answered our question: what information does he have, and how does Azerbaijan feel about this issue? “Several delegation members met with Paul Gavan a few days ago. As of that moment, there was no answer from the Azerbaijani side, and I do not have any optimism in this matter.
Remember that the PACE spring session was held in Strasbourg on April 24-28. Paul Gavan issued a statement noting the importance of his visit to the Lachin Corridor and Nagorno-Karabakh. He specifically stated in a widespread statement. “During my visit, which should include first-hand experience of conditions in the Lachin Corridor, I am ready to meet with all relevant parties. Despite the recent painful increase in tension, I am confident that I can count on cooperation and goodwill with Armenia and Azerbaijan.”
Hayk Mamijanyan said he conveyed his requests to the rapporteur during the meeting with Paul Gavan and elaborated. “Particularly, I asked him, among other recommendations, that if the Azerbaijani side does not allow him to visit the Lachin Corridor, at least during the visit to Baku, the rapporteur should demand a meeting with the so-called eco-activists who blocked the Lachin Corridor.
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In particular, I asked not to hold a meeting as such but to ask during the meeting for these so-called activists to present the struggle they have carried out during these thirty years in environmental protection issues. It would be desirable to meet not in any government institution but in the offices of those ecological organizations. All my questions were for the rapporteur to make sure that these people are a group of people who live on state salaries and carry out illegal activities, who have nothing to do with environmental protection, have no previous experience in the field of environmental protection, but are only carrying out the insidious and genocidal plan of the authoritarian authorities of Azerbaijan. We wondered how Paul Gavan reacted, Hayk Mamijanyan answered. “He said he would try. I formulated my request so I don’t want to do your work for you, but I said it as an offer.”
In the conversation with Hayk Mamijanyan, we reminded that the CE Human Rights Commissioner Dunja Mijatović, during the plenary session of the PACE spring session, referring to the ban on her visit to Nagorno-Karabakh and the Lachin Corridor, stated that it is because of the Member States that she cannot visit Nagorno-Karabakh and the Lachin Corridor, according to in fact, blaming Armenia as well. At the same time, Azerbaijan refuses to allow international organizations to visit Nagorno-Karabakh. And we asked: everyone knows that Azerbaijan is preventing international organizations from visiting Nagorno-Karabakh and the Lachin corridor, and we reminded that during the last session, Hayk Mamijanyan met Dunja Mijatović , and therefore, what does the CE human rights commissioner think, and why she did not say directly that the obstacle is the Azerbaijani side? The deputy answered, “Individual meetings and opinions from the podium are not always the same. Secondly, all international structures are distinguished by their often being non-addressable.
In some cases, one of the reasons for the lack of effectiveness of international structures is to avoid calling things by their names and to use diplomacy where diplomacy has had nothing to do for a long time.” To our other question, how would you evaluate the spring session of the PACE, especially since the Assembly decided and made the Moldova issue more critical than the Lachin Corridor? An urgent debate was organized on the subject of Moldova, Hayk Mamijanyan answered. “In the next session, a report on the Lachin Corridor is scheduled to be presented, and probably a resolution will be adopted. It will happen in June. I think it was due to this that the issue of Moldova was included in the agenda this time.”
Tatev HARUTYUNYAN
“Aravot” daily, 29.04.2023
