NAGORNO-KARABAKH REACTS TO COUNCIL OF EUROPE SG ‘s REMARKS

ARMENPRESS
Nov 7, 2007

YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 7, ARMENPRESS: A foreign affairs committee of
Nagorno-Karabakh parliament has retaliated today to what it described
as ‘unbecoming’ remarks made by the Council of Europe secretary
general, Terry Davis, during a visit to Armenia earlier this week.

In a statement disseminated to media the parliament committee said
it was surprised why the usually ‘tight-lipped’ secretary general of
the Council of Europe was so ‘articulate’ to make several remarks
during a visit to Armenia which bring honor neither to him nor to
the respected human rights body he represents.

The authorities in Nagorno-Karabakh were, particularly, angered
by Davis’s description of the authorities there as’ separatists.’
In their statement the committee said that ‘all people striving for
independence have to go through a period of separatism".

"It is not the fault of the people of Nagorno-Karabakh that during
the collapse of the former Soviet Union the UN or the Council of
Europe could not impose an ‘external governance’ in Nagorno-Karabakh
that would further legitimize its current de facto independence,"
the statement says.

The statement also reminds that what the UN did in Europe to thwart
ethnic cleansings and genocide, the people of Nagorno-Karabakh did by
themselves, using only their own strength, resource and their right
to self-defense.