PACE MONITORING COMMITTEE URGES ALL ARMENIAN POLITICAL FORCES TO REFRAIN FROM INCREASING TENSIONS

ARKA
March 19, 2008

YEREVAN, March 19. /ARKA/. Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of
Europe (PACE) Monitoring Committee urges all Armenian political forces
to accept the decision of the RA Constitutional Court recognizing the
results of the February 19 presidential elections as valid, the PACE
Communiqué placed in the PACE website reads. The Committee met in
Paris on February 18 to discuss the situation in Armenia and consider
the proposals of its envoy John Prescott.

>From February 20 to March 1, Armenia’s opposition political forces led
by ex-president Levon Ter-Petrosyan were holding rallies in Liberty
Square in Yerevan protesting against the results of February 19
presidential elections attributing victory to Prime Minister Serge
Sargssyan.

As a result of public unrest and clashes between the rally participants
and the police, 131 people were injured, and eight were killed. On
March 1, RA President Robert Kocharyan issued a decree on imposing
a twenty-day state of emergency in the capital.

The Constitutional Court of Armenia turned down the petition of
Armenian opposition to invalidate the voting results and left unchanged
the February 24 decision of the RA Central Electoral Commission,
according to which Serge Sargssyan, leader of the Republican Party
of Armenia and prime minister is Armenia’s new president elect.

The committee was informed by its envoy John Prescott of the main
conclusions arising from his fact-finding mission to Yerevan, on 7
and 8 March 2008, and called upon all sides to accept Mr Prescott’s
proposals aimed at resolving the current crisis.

The Committee demands establishing an independent inquiry into the
circumstances that led to the events on 1 March 2008, initiating
a dialogue between all political forces to reform the electoral
framework with a view to regaining public trust in the conduct and
outcome of elections, to reform the political system with a view to
providing a proper place for the opposition in the decision-making
process and governance of the country.

The Monitoring Committee also expressed its deep concern about the
arrest of more than one hundred persons in Armenia and the conditions
in which such arrests took place. The Committee urged lifting the
state of emergency and restoring individual Human rights and freedoms,
as well as releasing all jailed activists who have not committed
violent crimes.

In the opinion of the committee, the arrest of large numbers of
opposition leaders and of three Members of Parliament is inevitably
perceived as a crack-down on the opposition by the authorities and
will do nothing to ease the tensions in Armenia. The committee called
upon all sides to refrain from any action that would increase the
tensions and to commit themselves to a genuine dialogue to resolve
the current crisis.

The Monitoring Committee noted that the dialogue between all political
forces could be initiated in the form of round tables under the aegis
of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly.

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