MP: PACE's pro-Azeri stand result of Serzh Sargsyan shortsightedness

 The Armenian delegation will do everything for PACE to reject the resolution on the report entitled  "Escalation of Violence in Nagorny Karabakh and other occupied territories of Azerbaijan," Vahram Baghdasaryan, the head of the Republican Party of Armenia faction in the Parliament, said on June 12. 

He said the Armenian delegates have been standing up against the Azerbaijani lobby for years, but sometimes the policy of oil dollars and caviar are preferred to the truth.  "I'd not like to go into details, but I assure you that we will give a proper response," he said.

Levon Zurabyan, the head of the Armenian National Congress Party, in turn, said PACE did not afford such statements on Nagorny Karabakh under Levon Ter-Petrosyan, the first president of Armenia. "The situation has deteriorated due to the following two presidents' short-sighted foreign policy," Zurabyan said.  MP from Heritage Party Tevan Poghosyan is sure the Armenian delegation must more actively inform the European parliamentarians of the real state of affairs, so that they do not yield to Baku's pressure.  Aghvan Vardanyan, MP from ARFD Party, said Azerbaijan seeks to create a new format of the OSCE Minsk Group to settle the Karabakh conflict in its favor. "As long as there is the current format OSCE Minsk Group, such kind of resolutions will change nothing," he said. As for the Russian parliamentarian Dmitry Savelyev's statements that "the seven regions around Nagorny Karabakh must be returned to Azerbaijan," Vardanyan said: "If the Azerbaijani media did not misquote Savelyev, let them come and take those regions. Such statements are nothing and can not influence the situation," he said.

On June 11, Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian received Axel Fischer and Alan Meale, PACE co- rapporteurs for the monitoring of Armenia. The press office of the Armenian Foreign Ministry reports that Nalbandian presented Armenia's stand on regional problems and the Armenia-EU cooperation.    

When speaking of the joint efforts of Armenia and the OSCE Minsk Group towards peaceful settlement of the Karabakh conflict, Nalbandian pointed out that PACE's decision to make a report on the situation in Artsakh may hamper the Co-Chairs' activities and the peace process. To recall, on Azerbaijan's initiative, PACE took a decision in October 2014 to instruct Robert Walter, rapporteur of the Political Affairs Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), to prepare a report entitled "Escalation of Violence in Nagorno-Karabakh and Other Occupied Territories of Azerbaijan."