news.am, Armenia



 Armenian official at PACE: Agramunt is a missioner, defender of
Azerbaijan's interests

21:03, 27.06.2017



President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe
(PACE) Pedro Agramunt is a missioner, that is the defender of
Azerbaijan's interests, representative of the Armenian delegation to
PACE, Deputy Speaker of the Armenian National Assembly (NA) Mikayel
Melkumyan stated in his speech at the PACE plenary session on Tuesday.


''The fact that Agramunt is the defender of Azerbaijan's interests was
also confirmed by the speech of the Azerbaijani delegation
representative Samad Seyidov. Therefore, today's discussion is
directly linked to Agramunt's conduct, which is unacceptable. But he
is again absent. Thus, he should resign and leave,'' he noted.

According to Melkumyan, the struggle against corruption should be
measurable and visible, certain steps being taken by Armenia in this
direction, particularly with regard to legislation and administration:
the country has adopted laws on criminalization of unlawful enrichment
and formation of a new anti-corruption body.

''I think the international community and the governments of different
states should unite their forces for preventing this issue and its
further overcoming. But how can one work effectively in that direction
if, for instance, in a country like Azerbaijan the head of the state
himself backs development of corruption, provoking aggressive military
actions as it happened in April 2016 all along the Nagorno-Kaarbakh
and Azerbaijani border. Materials have been published in a number of
official periodicals and other media sources, including within the
framework of Panama Papers, pursuant to which Azerbaijani President
Aliyev's family and, particularly, his daughters possess enormous
wealth in different countries of the world. I had an opportunity to
voice about this phenomenon during the previous plenary sessions of
our organization. But because the topic under discussion is the
struggle against corruption, I would like to reiterate that we should
make efficient proposals and provide guarantees for overcoming this
phenomenon,'' he said.