Although no Armenia-related issues were on the agenda of the spring session of the CE Parliamentary Assembly (PACE), the Armenian delegation was most efficient and accomplished a number of tasks, Naira Zohrabyan, member of the Armenian delegation to PACE, told NEWS.am.

In presenting her report entitled “Women’s rights in conflict and post-conflict regions”, Zohrabyan told about Armenian pogroms in Azerbaijan, particularly in Marag, “In my other report, which I, unfortunately, had not time to present, but which is available on the PACE website, I addressed Ilham Aliyev’s claim that no ethnic cleansing had ever taken place in Azerbaijan. By presenting numerous facts, I disproved his claim and drew my European colleagues’ attention to the fact that no encampments might now exist in Azerbaijan of that country’s authorities had allowed the refugees to occupy the 92,000 flats left by the Armenians killed an forcibly displaced from the country,” Zohrabyan said.

She also reported that Azerbaijan continues its efforts to intensify the discussions of the Nagorno-Karabakh problem at different international institutions, particularly at PACE. “But Head of the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs Micheline Calmy-Rey, who is also Chairperson of the CE Ministers’ Committee, prevented the attempts. She regards as unacceptable any other format except for the OSCE Minsk Group for the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process despite PACE President Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu’s efforts to get the issue put on the PACE agenda,” Zohrabyan said. Micheline Calmy-Rey also drew the international community’s attention to the Armenian-Turkish process and underlined the necessity for seriously considering official Yerevan’s signal about suspending the ratification of the Armenian-Turkish protocols.

As regards the formation on a PACE subcommittee on Nagorno-Karabakh, Zohrabyan stressed that no relevant agreement was reached. “A meeting between Armenian and Azerbaijani parliamentary delegations with Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu’s participation was only arranged for further agreements to be reached. So Mr. Çavuşoğlu’s nominating himself to the post of chairman of a subcommittee which may not even be formed is, to put it mildly, surprising,” Zohrabyan said. She also reported that Speaker of the Nagorno-Karabakh Parliament Ashot Ghulyan sent an invitation to PACE to observe parliamentary elections in the NKR.

T.P.