By Armen Gevorgyan

During PACE January session two anti-Armenian draft resolutions on Karabakh conflict will be discussed. The question whether those draft resolutions will be adopted or rejected by the European MPs is discussed a lot in the Armenian media.

However, given the fact that PACE resolutions are not legally binding, and that it is not the first time Azerbaijan is trying to put into circulation anti-Armenian resolutions and statements both in PACE and in other international organizations, the most important thing here is to pay attention to some other issues - far more important than the adoption or rejection of these two draft resolutions.

Even if PACE adopts these documents, no progress or regress will be recorded in the negotiation process, Azerbaijan's war rhetoric will not change too much as well – maybe only a new thesis for speculation will arise. Overall, everything will remain the same.

The question is - what lessons can we learn from this situation? Perhaps, no matter how strange it may sound, these anti-Armenian documents could have a positive meaning for us.

This is a litmus test, which showed that in many questions our parliamentary diplomacy needs reforms, its approaches and policies, relations with partners need to be reviewed and updated. And this does not only refer to the Armenian delegation to PACE. The problem is global, because all processes are interrelated and in order to succeed in one platform, it is necessary to work effectively and systematically in all directions in parallel. This process can become an episode that will contribute to the revealing of many gaps, creating new working platforms and realizing the new opportunities.

In addition, Armenia is a full member of the Council of Europe and together with its partner countries can take advantage of this opportunity and come up with initiatives to reform the structure, increase the efficiency of PACE tools and their correct use to build trust between the conflicting parties, etc. Finally, PACE has never been a platform which deals or has ever dealt with conflicts, and there is a need to clarify this issue and to prevent the possible negative impact on conflicts. Maybe Armenia, as a party to the negotiation process, could make its constructive proposals to its other partners in PACE, prompting the areas and issues on which the organization could work more effectively and contribute to the settlement processes of conflicts.

These two draft resolutions, if approved, will not cause a serious damage. On the contrary, the example of this process will give an opportunity to re-evaluate the situation and strengthen our positions in different parliamentary institutions, develop our relations with them, at the same time come up with initiatives in those institutions that we are a full members of, raising the efficiency of both our parliamentary diplomacy, and that of other institutions, in this case of PACE, as well as strengthening our relations with European partners.