EUROPE CREATES ATMOSPHERE

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| 20:39:14 | 11-10-2005 | Politics |

For the first time since 2004 the parliamentary Assembly of the
Council of Europe has not discussed any concrete issues referring
to Armenia. Today head of the Armenian delegation to PACE informed
journalists of the Strasbourg developments. He in detailed told about
the meeting with head of the Ago Group and PACE President.

Europeans stress the necessity of the constitutional process and its
successful outcome, he said. He also reminded that PACE President
Van der Linden remembered the election in Azerbaijan naming each of
the arrested and candidates, who haven’t registered yet. Head of the
Azeri delegation in his turn noted that it will be rather hard to
honor all the CoE commitments.

As it is known, the PACE Ad Hoc Committee on Nagorno Karabakh held
a sitting in Strasburg. According to Torosyan, it will not reduce
the authority of the OSCE Minsk Group, since it will deal with the
settling the problem while the CoE will “secure tolerance and creation
of atmosphere of mutual trust.”

Tigran Torosyan mentioned yesterday’s statement by Chair of the Council
Minister of the Council of Europe, who called upon the RA political
parties adopt the constitutional amendments. The Vice Speaker also
sounded discontent with the political forces speaking out against
the amendments.

“How can one prefer his own interest to the interests of the state”,
he said.

Tigran Torosyan considers that if the referendum fails, the problem
will last 4-5 years, since parliamentary election in to he held in
2007, and the turn for the presidential election will come in 2008. If
the constitutional amendments are adopted, laws will be changed as
well and the Council of Europe will not subject Armenia to monitoring
any longer.

To note, the process of Armenia’s honoring commitments to the CoE
will be discussed during the next PACE session.