VISIT OF PACE RAPPORTEUR FAILED BY AZERBAIJAN

AZG Armenian Daily
31/08/2007

On August 29 PACE Secretary General Mateo Sorinas informed Speaker
of RA National Assembly Tigran Torosian that PACE Rapporteur Edward
O’Hara’s visit to South Caucasus has been cancelled. One of the main
reasons for the cancellation is the difficulty in accessing Karabakh
(as it was announced by Azerbaijan on August 28).

According to information provided by the RA National Assembly
Department for Social Relations, the initiative of the visit
belonged to the Armenian delegation to PACE and was aimed at
studying the events in Nakhijevan. As "Azg" reported previously,
the visit was to take place long ago, but it was being systematically
postponed. Last time it was appointed on August 29. The program of the
visit had been thoroughly elaborated and the Republics of Armenia and
Nagorno-Karabakh had offered their assistance to the implementation
of the visit program. The reporting side had prepared the list of the
monuments to be visited. The PACE delegation was to arrive in Armenia
and Karabakh on August 29 and the program was to be sent to Armenia a
day earlier. But instead a letter was received from the commission’s
secretary, which said that the visit had been cancelled again.

The National Assembly says that the cancellation was caused by
the declaration of the Azerbaijani delegation. The Azeri delegates
demanded the PACE Rapporteur to arrive in Karabakh from the territory
of Azerbaijan, while it had been pre-arranged that the transport was
to be provided by the Armenian side.

Thus, factually the visit was failed by the Azerbaijani side.

The message of the National Assembly also drove attention to the fact
that the PACE Rapporteur desired to visit only one Islamic memorial
in Armenia – the Persian Blue Mosque, in despite of Azerbaijan’s
allegations that Armenians destroy Azeri memorials.

This means that the Azerbaijani authorities can by no means prove
their accusations to Armenia’s address and those accusations never
go beyond slandering.

"It is obvious that the Azeris are by any means impeding the visit of
PACE Rapporteur to South Caucasus, for surely the during the visit
the destruction of Armenian memorials, that took place and is still
taking place both in Azerbaijan and Nakhijevan, shall be revealed and
the groundlessness of Azeris’ statements," says the message received
from the Parliament of Armenia.

The future fate of the visit shall be decided during the nearest
meeting of the PACE commission.