ARMENIAN PARLIAMENT SPEAKER DENOUNCES AZERBAIJAN’S ACCUSATIONS OF NK’s COMMITTING FOREST ARSONS AS LIBELOUS STATEMENT
Arka News Agency, Armenia
July 3 2006
YEREVAN, July 3. /ARKA/. On Friday, Armenian National Assembly Speaker
Tigran Torosyan, speaking at PACE summer session on forest fires
and their damage to environment, condemned Azerbaijan for accusing
Nagorno Karabakh of committing arsons in forests.
The think is that a week ago Azerbaijani side made a fuss over
bush fires saying Armenians are deliberately firing forests along
Karabakh-Azerbaijan border.
Torosyan reminded that three year ago Nagorno-Karabakhi leadership
voiced alarm at the fact of bush fires and, using OSCE Minsk Group’s
mediation, offered Azerbaijani authorities to work out joint measures
to prevent them, but Azerbaijan ignored this offer.
In his words, while Azerbaijani leadership kept venting anger at
Nagorno-Karabakh, the latter asked OSCE to send its representatives
to see the situation on site. "They have found nothing confirming
Azerbaijani side’s allegation", Torosyan said in his speech.
Torosyan expressed regret at Azerbaijani side’s bent for resorting
to dishonest means in discussing any problem. In his words, even CE
documents are being forged for that purpose.
Hermine Naghdalyan, another member of Armenian delegation in PACE, said
that the fires, first of all, inflicted damage to Karabakhi people,
who can’t fire own crop. She pointed out "Azerbaijani descent of the
photos presented by Azerbaijani delegation.
This is nothing more than a political blackmail aimed at shifting
international community’s attention from facts of Armenian monuments
destruction in Azerbaijan to other things.