PACE MONITORING COMMITTEE MUST TRY TO BE IMPARTIAL
Gevorg Harutyunyan

Hayots Ashkhar Daily
29 Aug 2008
Armenia

PACE Monitoring Committee will convene its regular session in Paris,
on September 11, where NA delegation will also participate. We
should remind you that the process of the implementation of PACE
resolution 1609 and 1620 will be one of the issues of discussion. The
correspondent of "Hayots Ashkharh" daily had an interview with the
member of NA temporary committee investigating the reasons of March
1-2 developments, Naira Zohrabyan.

"Mrs. Zohrabyan what has been done to perform the proposals made by
PACE resolution 1609 and 1620?"

"We have never perceived the proposals recorded in the two PACE
resolutions as a normative act and we have never considered each
point of the resolution as dogma, which must immediately be carried
out. Naturally certain work has been and is being implemented, but
we didn’t do certain examination to clarify which point we performed
and which we didn’t.

It my view it is impossible to plan the terms of performing this
or that point. The most important thing is that the principles of
resolution 1609 and 1620 are acceptable for us. In essence they match
with the stances of the coalition "Bargavach Hayastan", "Orinats
Yerkir", and Dashnaktsutyun parties formed with the Republican Party
still on March2025 and the clauses of the agreement on cooperation
signed by them.

We must take into consideration that the projects mentioned in the
coalition agreement and the proposals made in PACE resolution require
certain period of time to be completed. That is why it is not realistic
to expect all the issues to be solved before September 11. Undoubtedly
certain work has already been done and many tough issues are in the
process of settlement.

But even in case of the most perfect conditions it is not possible
to do everything immediately.

I strongly believe our European partners will take this into
consideration on September 11 and will try to be impartial in their
estimations.’

"What expectations do you have from the works of NA temporary
committee, if we take into consideration that PACE officials follow
the process of the court procedures linked with March 1 developments?"

"The precautionary measure of many detainees has been changed. Many of
them got softer punishments. Not only is it too early to draw complete
and total conclusions, but we also lack sufficient facts. The thing
is the volume of the cases at inquest and trial stage is too big. And
it is only after the investigation of those cases that we can get a
general idea, understand and make well-grounded conclusions.

All the members of NA temporary committee are consistent. In my view
the judicial and legal bodies work by the same principle, which is,
not to accuse anyone of political standpoints or activity. To avoid
emotional assessments is one of our priorities. There can be no
speculations. And it is only after the clarification of the whole
picture of March 1-2 events that the temporary committee can have
the right to give its political assessment to what happened.

The most important thing is that there is political will and the
authorities are in the process of gradual settlement of the issues,
because our country and our people need this."

"Can the monitoring committee assess the process of the implementation
of the resolution not substantially but in the context of political
approaches, because they intentionally overlook the fact that
opposition doesn’t perform the proposals addressed to them?"

"I don’t think the announcements heard from the tribune of the
Council of European will contradict their own principles. Though
there are cases of applying double standards. I hope there will be
no situational or political solutions on September 11."