ArmInfo. The Armenian public has not yet heard the resolutions of the Council of Europe condemning Azerbaijan regarding the 44-day war in 2020. Armen Gevorgyan, member of the RA National Assembly from the "Armenia" opposition faction, stated this at a meeting with the Secretary General of the Council of Europe.
Opening the meetings, Gevorgyan expressed regret over the fact that the Secretary General of the Council of Europe did not find an opportunity for a separate meeting with representatives of the parliamentary opposition.
"It becomes a bad tradition when representatives of the Council of Europe avoid direct dialogue and cooperation with representatives of the main opposition in Armenia. Nevertheless, I would like to draw your attention to some issues," he said.
In this vein, Gevorgyan drew attention to the fact that the internal life in Armenia is in full swing today, because there is a great historical injustice against the people of Nagorno-Karabakh.
"I'm sure that during your meetings with Armenian officials, you kept hearing about the 'peace agenda' for the region. I'll say right away that no one in Armenia wants war. But also a lot of people are not ready for the fact that after 30 years free and independent existence, the people of Nagorno-Karabakh may live within Azerbaijan. The people of Nagorno-Karabakh themselves are not ready for this. We are concerned that, for example, in contrast to the European Parliament, the desire to equate Armenia and Azerbaijan prevails in the Council of Europe, the desire to less irritate Azerbaijan and Turkey with bad resolutions and assessments. By the way, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that by avoiding direct dialogue with the opposition both in Armenia and Azerbaijan, you, in fact, indirectly put another sign of equality between these two countries in terms of commitment to democracy," the Armenian MP said.
It should be noted that the Armenian public has not yet heard the resolutions of the Council of Europe condemning Azerbaijan regarding the 44-day war in 2020, Gevorgyan drew attention to the fact that the Council of Europe did not accept sanctions after the aggression of Azerbaijan against the territorial integrity of Armenia since May 2021.
"Azerbaijan can ignore the calls of the international community for the release of all prisoners of war and detainees, continuing a definitely racist and xenophobic policy towards Armenians. " think that this will also be confirmed by the decisions of the International Court of Justice within the framework of the launched legal procedures. All this worries us in the context of whether it is possible to negotiate anything with Azerbaijan at all," the MP said.
"You may ask: what can the Council of Europe do to justly resolve the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh? In my opinion, the organization should begin to objectively assess the situation, which will restrain Azerbaijan's aggressiveness, as well as protect the quality of democracy in the member countries of the Council of Europe," Gevorgyan said.
In his opinion, this will also contribute to a more productive peace dialogue in the region. The oppositionist noted that the Council of Europe must be fair and consistent, and therefore support and protect fundamental rights and freedoms, and above all the right of nations to self-determination. At the same time, he noted that he is deeply concerned about the fact that the Council of Europe does not pay attention to the obvious retreat from the norms and traditions of democracy in Armenia.
Gevorgyan stressed that the restriction of freedom of speech and the work of the media, the growing dependence of the country's judicial and investigative bodies on the executive branch, the illegal persecution of opposition representatives have become "new norms" of the so-called democratic traditions in Armenia.
He also drew attention to the fact that the disputed quality of local self-government elections in recent months can no longer be ignored even by international organizations.
"Over the past two months, these unacceptable phenomena have been supplemented by facts of violation of the rights of citizens to peaceful protests and the use of brute and disproportionate force by the police. And on June 3 this year, the police, without warning and special need, used stun grenades to disperse thousands of peaceful protests, as a result of which many policemen and civilians were seriously injured and hospitalized. At the moment, 31 representatives of the opposition have been arrested for various illegal reasons and obvious political motives. I would like to remind everyone present that literally at the spring session of PACE a resolution was adopted on issues of true democracy, where an important statement is made that "democracy is not a dictatorship of the majority," Gevorgyan said.
In conclusion, he stressed that the Armenian opposition does not intend to turn the Council of Europe into a platform for gladiator fights with the Armenian authorities and Azerbaijan. "But we are also not going to put up with the fact that the organization is turning into a platform for legalizing the results of the 44-day war, clearly promoting the interests of the Turkic coalition at the expense of the Armenian people, and a place of silent observation of anti-democratic processes in our country.