On June 20-24 during the summer session of PACE the session of the sub-committee on Karabakh conflict will also take place. And by the end of this year the subcommittee will submit to PACE bureau the draft resolution.
Let’s recall that we mean the subcommittee, which was established when the PACE chair was elected Turkish Mevlut Chavushoglu. And he directly participated in the establishment of the subcommittee. Although the Armenian delegation was against the establishment of this committee but wasn’t able to preclude its establishment. And the launch of this subcommittee is noteworthy because it’s will take place on the days of the visit of the Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan to PACE. And Sargsyan is going to make a speech at the session of the mentioned committee. Back on April 18, after the completion of the spring session of PACE, the head of the Armenian delegation to PACE Davit Harutyunyan stated that he had privately told the head of the subcommittee Hugla i Costa that the activities of the subcommittee are full with perils and negative consequences and that it will originate extra tension to the negotiation process. At that time Davit Harutyunyan expressed his hope that at least the subcommittee will not be launched this year. He also said that on the first day of the spring session of PACE the Armenian delegation expressed its strict reservation about the launch of the subcommittee. Indeed the chair of PACE Chavushoglu, the president of the subcommittee and some other members of PACE should have done everything to ensure that the subcommittee is launched because as it’s known the current Turkish chair of PACE is going to be in the tenure till January 2012. And the president of the subcommittee said that they intended to submit a resolution to the subcommittee by the end of the year, which meant that they were interested in holding the first session of the subcommittee by January 2012. And what has the Armenian delegation done to prevent the launch of the subcommittee, which the Armenian government finds impermissible, dangerous and inefficient? The Armenian delegation is only sufficing by making statements, according to which the best way of resolving the NKR conflict is the Minsk Group format. The same thing is said by the chair of PACE (who in the meantime does everything to ensure that the subcommittee is formed). So does the Human Rights Commissioner of Council of Europe Thomas Hammarberg. Let’s mention that back in April Davit Harutyunyan would state that this committee will become a forum for the sides to address accusations to each other. Moreover, he blamed the PACE for showing an evident and open subjective approach to the regulation of the NKR conflict. Back in April Harutyunyan stated that Armenia hadn’t yet decided to participate in the activities of the subcommittee on NKR conflict regulation or not. He mentioned, “One thing is clear for sure. We will not participate in the activities of a structure, which may harm the regulation process of the conflict.” Yesterday we didn’t succeed in clarifying from Harutyunyan the approach of Armenia; whether it was going to boycott the subcommittee sessions or whether that is the best approach because as he mentioned that going to become a forum for counter-accusations. Representative of the Armenian delegation to PACE Zaruhi Postanjyan told us that the delegation doesn’t yet have a joint and unanimous approach in this regard. “We don’t have a unanimous approach. Perhaps in the coming days we will clarify what we are going to do to stay on the same page,” she said. To the question whether we can assume that the decision of the Armenian delegation is going to be acceptable to her no matter what, Postanjyan said, “No, we are still consulting how we can deliver our approach. We are still consulting on the format.” The chair of the NKR public chamber on public affairs Mayis Mayilyan told us that he will have a normal approach to the decision of the Armenian delegation if several MPs from the Karabakhi parliament also took part in the activities of the subcommittee. As a response to this observation, the head of the Armenian delegation Harutyunyan is against such a format by stating, “We are always trying to maintain equality between NKR and the representative of any community.” And Mayilyan said, “We mean participate in the process separately. We don’t want to be in the delegation but wish to be a party of the negotiation process. If there are MPs from Azerbaijan and Armenia there should be representatives from Artsakh. Everybody should be represented. But if the representation is not equally provided then it can be considered merely propaganda. We should make sure that Anti-Armenian documents are not adopted. They should find the way but if they still need to participate then the MPS from the sides should be represented.” Mayilyan didn’t agree with the observation that the participation of the MPs from Karabakh to the sessions of the subcommittee is not realistic. “There are precedents that the Council of Europe conducted hearings with participation of then MPs of the Supreme Council.” To the question as to him which is the most acceptable version for him, whether it’s better to boycott or participate Mayilyan said, “If this boycott will help to prevent the adoption of any document then the right thing is to boycott. We should find some ways to withstand that process. We should work with the other members of the delegation to exclude such developments.” And in the opinion of the political analyst Davit Hovhannisyan it is hard to draw assumption based on what approaches the Armenian delegation can boycott the sessions of the subcommittee. Are they trying to pressure on the PACE by that decision? To the observation that the goal of the subcommittee is the adoption of the decision D. Hovhannisyan said, “It’s clear but I don’t understand the goal of the delegation. We understand that now they are thinking to boycott or not but boycotting also has concrete goals. They are boycotting in order to pressure or they pressure to boycott. Secondly, they boycott because they don’t have any levers of influence. And I don’t know why the delegation is discussing such matters.”