Stepan Safarian: Council of Europe will not apply sanctions against
Armenia if authorities release all political prisoners

YERE VAN, JANUARY 9, NOYAN TAPAN. The Council of Europe will not apply
sanctions against Armenia only if the authorities declare an amnesty
and release all the political prisoners. The secretary of "Heritage"
parliamentary faction Stepan Safarian expressed this opinion at the
January 9 press conference.

However, according to him, this version is ruled out as numerous
high-ranking officials have already voiced the idea that amnesty will
be declared only after the trial on "the case of the seven", while the
indicated trial and the volumes of the case actually exclude any
possibility that it may finish until late January – the beginning of
the PACE session.

S. Safarian said that the likeliest version is that the Armenian
delegation will be depived of its voting right in PACE. In his words,
the tough draft resolution that PACE adopted on December 17 of last
year, as well as the precedents of some countries form a basis for such
a conclusion. In particular, the CE deprived the delegations of Greece,
Belarus and Russia of their voting rights. "The time of making
statements about manifestation of good will has ended, and the Council
of Europe will no longer accept such statements of Armenian
authorities," S. Safarian noted.

He ruled out that economic sanctions may be applied against Armenia
after the political sanctions. In his opinion, the international
community will not resort to this step, taking into account the complex
geopolitical situation in Armenia as the population’s standard of
living will be endangered in this case. At the same time he did not
rule out that the measures that CE used against 20 high-ranking
officials of Belarus (they were deprived of the right to enter EU
countries) may be applied against Armenia as well.