Russia Not Signing Armenian Statement in PACE is Cause for Concern: Postanjyan

During last week’s PACE (the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe) winter session, MP and PACE Armenian delegate Zaruhi Postanjyan presented two documents, one of which referred to mine exploitation in the South Caucasus country, while the other was a written statement on developing the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh as a democratic state.

At a press conference in Yerevan today, Heritage Party press spokesperson Hovsep Khurshudyan and Postanjyan spoke on the results of the recent PACE winter session.

“I have to direct a question to the ruling coalition: whether the tactics they adopted in connection with [PACE President Mevlüt] Çavuşoğlu, not to ruin relations as possible future PACE president and not to make a move against him for that purpose, for this one year, do they consider it justified?” asked Khurshudyan.

Postanjyan mentioned that it is due to to Armenia’s “undemocratic authorities” that real victory cannot be noted, adding that representatives of 22 states signed her document on Nagorno-Karabakh. She noted, unfortunately, that Russia’s representative was not one of those states, which, according to the MP, should become an opportunity for Armenian authorities to make serious conclusions.

“If our diplomatic work is carried out appropriately, we will have real victories; we won’t be in this situation. It’s been 20 years that we have an independent state; however, our state representatives, deputies, and ambassadors somehow do not imagine that they represent an independent state, that they have to adopt independent state policy and not make their policies consistent with policies pursued by other states,” said Postanjyan.

Khurshudyan added that head of the PACE Armenian delegation Davit Harutyunyan failed even to get one vote on the matter which refers to re-opening the Nagorno-Karabakh subcommittee.

“Our goal must be doing everything for the work of this subcommittee to fail, and we can do that if we strengthen the composition of the delegation and envision a true democratic state. If in our country we don’t have people imprisoned for their political views, if there aren’t issues related with freedom of speech, we will be in a more positive and beneficial position in the international arena. But under these conditions, a question arises for other countries: who do we sit with, what do we negotiate? With a state where there are this many convicted for their political views,” said Postanjyan.