During a question-and-answer session with the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) in Strasbourg Marija Pejčinović Burić, the head of the AlDE group, Biani Jansson (Iceland), asked the Council of Europe Secretary-General, “Can you promise this assembly that you will do everything you can do your responsibilities to protect the fundamental rights of the Armenians expelled from Nagorno Karabakh?”
The General Secretary of the CE replied: “Regarding your question regarding the Armenians who fled the territory where they lived for hundreds of years, as of now, my special representative is already on his way to Armenia, agreed with the RA authorities. He will map out the needs of those people because they are more than a hundred thousand; almost all of them left Karabakh.
We will develop a plan on how to help those people. But it is also an important question when and how they should return to their homes because I think that no one wants to be a refugee, to leave the homeland of his ancestors, to leave his birthplace. I think that within the framework of the Council of Ministers, we should pay attention to this issue and ensure that these people return to their place of birth.
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I hope that soon we will be able to send the mission of the secretariat to Azerbaijan, which will understand what the leadership of Azerbaijan thinks about this situation. But I also call on Azerbaijan to implement the provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights because the rights of every person must be protected in the territory of the CE.”
Tatev HARUTYUNYAN
