Armenia hasn’t yet “digested” reso0lution 2216 recently adopted by the PACE and the predicted negative consequences. However last week it became known that the PACE is going to discuss another extremely unfavorable resolution for us. I mean resolution 1416, which anticipates the creation of a sub-commission in charge of the NKR conflict resolution within the PACE. It is known that the president of PACE Chavushoglu is making great efforts to gratify this goal. The latter will most probably head this commission. Unlike the governmental circles of Armenia, who are neutral and inaudible about this issue, the Armenian opposition raises its concerns about this process by warning that it may have quite negative and unpredictable consequences on Armenia. On these days a member of the ANM, former head of the Armenian delegation in the PACE Hovhannes Igityan is in Kazakhstan, who has had meetings with the MPs of the European Parliament in the framework of the forum that he has attended. During a conversation with us Mr. Igityan says that during his meetings it becomes clearer what our delegates are busy with in the PACE. “What I have realized during the talks with them is that the Armenian delegation doesn’t do anything in Brussels in terms of information. The MPs of the European Parliament think that they are busy with issues of setting peace and stability in the South Caucasus. But our diplomats instead of doing actual work are going to from one office to another from morning till evening by trying to persuade the Europeans that the prisoners in jail are not political prisoners but actual criminals and that everything is OK in our country in terms of democracy and freedom of speech. They persuade that things conform to European democratic standards. After the presidential elections 2008 a big number of experienced diplomats were ousted or isolated from the system and the rest of them are doing what’s not relevant to the diplomats. They inaccurately change the overall picture which exists in Armenia and for those diplomats it becomes very difficult to argue around the NKR conflict as they have lost their trust,” says Igityan. In his opinion Armenia has appeared in such a vulnerable state due to the bad work conduct of the National Assembly. “I should also speak negatively about the work of the National Assembly. Those MPs, who are involved in the European integration and other projects or are present at European structures do not match their missions at all, not to mention their non-proficiency of speaking foreign languages and having overall knowledge of the European values. All this causes the consequence that the European MPs receive information not from them but from the MPs of Azerbaijan and Turkey. Our parliament only sends letters regarding this or that issue and finds that the work is done.” As of what can be expected from the June session of the PACE and consequences of resolution 1416 Igityan says, “No resolution adopted in the European Parliament or Council of Europe can stay with no results or consequences. The environment, which is created via the commission on the NKR conflict, clearly shows that in fact this structure won’t be in charge of the NKR conflict resolution. It is created to pressure on Armenia. The policy adopted by Armenia, as a result of which the NKR was ousted from the negotiation process, caused the assumption that in various formulations Armenia is considered an occupant. For me the standpoint of the NKR authorities is also unclear. I am sure that if a similar resolution was adopted on Kosovo or Northern Cyprus then the people and the government would immediately become rebellious. We would see various acts of protest. But in our country everything proceeds quite peacefully and Armenia shows that it is quite normal to the accusations of being an occupant state. With their behavior today the RA government reassures that in the past they have intruded Azerbaijan with no reason and occupied 20% of its territories and have ousted the peaceful population. I am surprise whether the authorities of the NKR are OK with the fact that the issue is being elucidated in this manner.” Igityan is sure that in order to have progress and avoid a further negative consequence Armenia should undertake concrete steps. “There is only one way of speaking with the same language with the EU. We should be like those countries, which are united around this structure. We should at least respect and take into account the criteria, which exist for the European states. It is more than simple that if Armenia was a country like Luxembourg or Switzerland then there would not be such resolutions. Vice versa there would be a harsh approach to Azerbaijan. I think that first of all the government should cease making optimistic statements. In fact it was Armenia that involved Turkey in the process. Even if we are not able to change anything we should make sure that the people, who complicated the situation around the NKR conflict for Armenia should be punished. They should at least be punished in the political aspect by resigning.”
