PACE SHOULD BE A PLACE OF POLITICAL DIALOGUE AND NOT OF USING SANCTIONS, RUSSIAN DELEGATION’S MEMBER CONSIDERS
Noyan Tapan
Feb 5, 2009
YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 5, NOYAN TAPAN. The stormy discussion over Armenia at
the PACE January session was due to the fact that the Council of Europe
made many demands to the RA authorities. Sergei Markov, a member of
the Russian delegation in PACE, expressed such an opinion during the
TV bridge organized on February 5 by the Novosti Armenia information
agency. According to him, both the large-scale advertising company
of the opposition led by first President Levon Ter-Petrosian and the
March 1 events’ subject in Armenian media influence upon Council of
Europe officials studying Armenia’s situation.
S. Markov emphasized that the Russian delegation supported Armenia’s
interest at the Assembly, as Russia in general considers wrong to
deprive any state of the vote. "Even Georgia, where the elections were
rigged and Mikheil Saakashvili’s regime is criminal, should not be
deprived of the vote," A. Markov said. According to him, PACE should
be a place of a political dialogue and not of using sanctions.
RA NA ARFD faction head Vahan Hovhannisian, in his turn, said that
countries getting independent after the collapse of the USSR had
much expectations from European structures, but later they got
disappointed. According to V. Hovhannisian, a question emerges:
how much are the European structures objective and skilful? The ARFD
figure meanwhile added that some structures nevertheless work well
giving the example of the OSCE Minsk Group. "It is thanks to that
group that a second war did not break out in Azerbaijan," he said.