RIA Novosti, Russia
Jan 25 2009
Russia hopes PACE will not strip Armenia of voting rights – Kosachev
Moscow, 25 January: The Russian delegation at the Parliamentary
Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) is hoping that at the next
winter session, which starts at the beginning of next week, the
Assembly will not make a radical decision to strip the Armenian
delegation of voting rights, head of the Duma international affairs
committee Konstantin Kosahev told RIA Novosti.
At the summer session last year, the PACE discussed a report by John
Prescott and George Colombier on how Armenia was implementing
resolutions 1609 and 1620. The co-rapporteurs positively assessed the
country’s moves towards the media and election reforms. At the same
time the co-rapporteurs demanded that political prisoners should be
released and an unbiased investigation of the events on 1-2 March 2008
be carried out.
The Armenian opposition held protest actions in central Yerevan from
20 February, expressing its discontent with the outcome of the
presidential elections, which had been won by Serzh Sargsyan. On 1
March the protest actions led to clashes between the demonstrators and
the police, as a result of which 10 people were killed and 265
wounded.
At a meeting on 17 December 2008, the PACE monitoring committee
concluded that Armenia had not fulfilled the demands put forward by
the co-rapporteurs and suggested that the Armenian delegation’s voting
rights be suspended at the forthcoming winter session.
"My forecast is that it won’t come to such radical decisions,"
Kosachev said.
He said that the "current draft resolution contains a very radical
proposal to strip the Armenian delegation of voting rights, but,
according to my information, the situation has changed since the
moment the draft was prepared".
The head of the Russian delegation noted that "the Armenian
authorities have largely taken into account the Assembly’s
recommendations and the situation is not static, it’s developing". "I
don’t think the situation in Armenia is so dire, that it’s so badly
against the standards and values of the Council of Europe, to warrant
this decision," Kosachev said.
At the same time he added that "there are probably grounds for concern
but I can say that we will be firmly against making this decision
about the Armenian delegation".
[translated from Russian]