Thursday, October 13 2022 13:01

ArmInfo.The RA NA Vice President, the Head of the Armenian delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) Ruben Rubinyan gave a speech at PACE Autumn Session. 

As the press service of the RA NAreports, Ruben Rubinyan in his  speech  noted, in part:  " Thank you, Madam Chair.  First of all I  would like to thank all the speakers who spoke before me, especially  Mr G avan , for telling the truth and establishing the facts.   Indeed, my country, my democratic country, was recently attacked by  its authoritarian neighbour. The attack was completely unprovoked and  unjustified. Many civilians were killed. Settlements were damaged.  Civilian infrastructure was damaged. Mr G avan presented it all.  But  w hy did this happen dear friends? It happened because the aggressor  wasn't condemned before.

I remember during the last session, here in this hemicycle, I was  talking about another Azeri incursion into sovereign Armenian  territory which happened in 2021. I was talking about Armenian  prisoners of war that are still kept in Azerbaijan. They were kept in  Azerbaijan back then, they are still kept there. Now, a couple of  months later, we have a new aggression, a new occupation, new  prisoners of war, some of whom were killed, and there is footage of  these videos, of them being summarily executed by the Azerbaijanis  immediately after being captured. This happened because they were not  condemned before.

Dear colleagues, Mr Samad S eyodov , the Chair of the Azerbaijani  delegation is going to speak after me. Most probably, he is going to  resort to the good old Azerbaijani tradition of denial saying that  Azerbaijani aggression simply did not happen, but the Armenians  deserved it. This is what he is going to do. He is going to tell Mr G  avan , Ms A berg , and the other speakers that they are wrong. That  there is no incursion into Armenian territory. Why? Because it's his  job. Mr Samad S eyidov 's job is to justify the actions, the illegal  crimes, of his authoritarian government here.

Speaking about the necessity of talking about peace in this  organisation, I want to inform you that the President of PACE, Mr K  ox , invited me and Mr S eyidov to have a meeting in Paris when we  had a Monitoring Committee meeting. This meeting had to be held on 15  September. Why did it not happen?  Simply because two days before  this meeting my country was attacked by Azerbaijan and I didn't go to  Paris.  Dear friends, it's possible to talk about peace when your  colleague wants to talk about peace. It's impossible to talk about  peace while they are shooting at you, while they are occupying your  territory. It's impossible.  I understand that many of our friends  have been reluctant to take sides when it comes to the  Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. It is complicated. I understand.  This is  different. Whenever there is a case of an authoritarian government  attacking its democratic neighbour and occupying its territory, this  must be condemned, and the Azerbaijani troops have to withdraw from  Armenian territory immediately, and Armenian prisoners of war should  be released.  Thank you. "