During the past two months the political field of Armenia is focused on the recommendation of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe to deprive Armenia of the voting right, which will first of all challenge the reputation of our state.
The issue has not been paid a due attention so far and there has been too much tautology concerning the mentioned issue. Different people asked stupid questions and got stupid answers to such questions. The fact that Armenia is challenged with a risk to lose the international reputation is a result of such policy.
It is an exaggerated opinion when people say that it is not important whether Armenia will be deprived of the vote. Certainly it will impact Armenia’s interests much because a number of processes will depend on the PACE decision.
However, it is a fact that a certain opinion has been originated concerning Armenia. The mentioned opinion sounds like this: it is suspicious whether Armenia really advocates freedoms, which does not have even primitive traditions of human rights protection and democracy even in 18 years of independence. This is the most dangerous thing that is challenging Armenia’s efforts to have a good image in the international community. There are problems connected with image and reputation, which are very hard to achieve. Accordingly, the people, who are sitting in warm rooms and saying that the Europeans are not the one to teach us or say what to do, would be better to think what the impression of such people will be if they hear about their naughty questions. Will such questions make other people support us or the vice versa? How many of them will listen to them or care about what they are saying?
Sometimes it feels like the people who should not generally speak in the public and don’t have that talent are coming up with critics and saying that they will not deprive us of the vote or even if they do so, it will not be so crucial. Guys, it is primitive, more primitive than you think. There are too many people who are using the state resources for their own purposes. Such an attempt was made also by the head of the Azeri delegation to the PACE, who accused Armenia in almost all the sins of the world during the recent plenary session in Strasburg. Prescott replied directly to Seidov’s speech and said that it is nonsense. This information is also available in the PACE web page. In fact everything is not so simple as many people are trying to show.
There is another argument too, according to which there are political prisoners in Azerbaijan, and if they look for political prisoners in Turkey they will find there too, so why don’t they impose punishments on the mentioned countries as well? Have they forgotten about the article 301? I’d like to ask a question to the people who are bringing such arguments as mentioned above. Why are you comparing us with Azerbaijan? Do you want to be like them? Do they think that Azerbaijan has the democratic and human rights protections standards? The Europeans have numerously said that Karabakh is more democratic than Azerbaijan, and the power is not inherited in Karabakh as in Azerbaijan. Generally it will be very helpful to think about this too.
It is very important what will happen after January 27. It is clear that after the session, notwithstanding the PACE decision the issue will not be closed. If they don’t deprive us of the vote, the issue will be delayed for discussion in April or June. Only we should not be happy or sad about any results. Such things connected with the EU may happen often because there are a number of unsolved problems. We can’t speak of some of such problems openly. There is no need to repeat again that certain things should be done to support dialogue between the political poles in order to work out the grounds of possible punishments.
Particularly we need to clarify the concrete strategy of Armenia targeted at integration with the EU and other international institutions. What do we want from such organizations? What can it give to us to support solve our problems, etc.? Otherwise it is not worth to stand against Europe and make funny critics by saying that we don’t need such organizations and integration with them even if it ensures certain people and their businesses in Armenia.