PACE disgraced itself by resuming sub-comittee on Karabakh –Armenian delegation leader

By its recent decision to re-establish the sub-comiittee on Nagorno Karabakh, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) actually disgraced itself, the հead of the Armenian delegation to PACE, David Harutyunyan, told a news conference on Tuesday.

"The Assembly disgraced itself by demonstrating an apparently biased attitude towards the Armenian-Azerbaijani relations," he said, adding that despite his disappointment with the decision, he still had certain positive expectations from the Assembly's stance on human rights issues.

Harutyunyan was concerned that the media seemed somewhat unaware of the sub-committee's prehistory. He said PACE resolution 1416 on creating a sub-committee had been discussed and adopted back in 2005, but the Armenian side had objected to the decision. He also added that the committe was suspended after the death of its first chairman, Russel-Johnston.

He further noted that the Assembly's recent decision to resume the sub-committe was in violation of the Secretariat's promise to the Armenian side, which implied proposing possible scenarios to prepare the Armenian and Azerbaijani societies for the settlement of the conflict.

Another serious violation, according to Harutyunyan, was that the Secretariat had failed to distribute the Armenian delegation's letter among other members, although the Armenian delagates had managed to meet with 90% of PACE parliamentarians.

"The reason is that Chavushoglu realizes he has only one year to chair the Assembly while there are programs to move forward. That's why the processes has lost credibility," he added.

"Instead of thinking of civilized ways to normalize our relations in a committee with outside observes we are creating a platform for making mutual accusations."

Asked whether the Armenian delegation may freeze its membership in PACE as long as Chavusholglu heads the structure, Harutyunyan said such scenario was highly unlikely.

"I don't find such step possible," he said.