Armenian delegates to the Parlaimentary Assmebly of the Council of Europe will have a serious work to do next week, when PACE spring session kicks off on April 18. Three requests for current affairs debate on Nagorno Karabakh have been submitted by French, Azerbaijani and Armenians delegates. The Bureau will decide which of the three requests will be considered. The Armenian delegates are resolute to bring the truth about the four-day war to the attention of the Parliamentary Assembly.
The first request titled “The recent and tragic escalation of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict” was submitted by French MP Francois Rochebloine, Head of the Armenian delegation to PACE Hermine Naghdalyan told Public Radio of Armenia.
Immediately after that the Azerbaijani delegation submitted a request for a debate on “The tragic escalation of violence in Nagorno-Karabakh and the other occupied territories of Azerbaijan.” This was followed by a proposal of the Armenian side to discuss the “War crimes committed by Azerbaijan during the recent aggression against Nagorno-Karabakh.”
“These are proposals to discuss the same topic under three different titles. Obviously, the choice of the title will affect the debate.  The struggle of the proposals is going to be very interesting. Some proposals are being brought to the agenda in order to harm the other ones, to foil their consideration at PACE,” Hermine Naghdalyan said.
Therefore, it’s clear that the Parliamentary Assembly will hold a current affairs debate on Nagorno Karabakh, but it’s not yet clear which of the proposals will be preferred. After one of the three requests is chosen by the Bureau, the issue will be discussed at the plenary sitting. The author will have ten minutes to present the issue and his/her approaches, which will be followed by 90-minute debates. After the debates the Bureau is authorized to decide whether the topic will be summed up by one discussion or will be considered further with a view of developing a report.