The work of PACE Subcommittee on Nagorno-Karabakh without involvement of the Armenian side does not make any sense and is impossible. The PACE Bureau should have taken this into consideration when it resumed its operation. PACE’s expectations for this subcommittee are unclear to us, Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan stated at PACE on Tuesday. 

“We believe the PACE plays an important role in the region. Its activities should not hinder the peace process. If it manages to avoid mutual insults of the Armenia and Azerbaijani delegations at PACE, it will have a significant impact on the improvement of the atmosphere in the region,” he stated. 

The Armenian leader stressed the importance of the OSCE Minsk Group format led by international mediators.

“Recently we have learnt that the subcommittee suspended its activities as Lord Russel passed away. That is not true. What a serious issue it should have raised? It lacks historical memory, it has no notion of the previous steps and is unable to make a fair decision,” Sargsyan noted. “I do not see a more competent format. I believe the activities of the subcommittee on Karabakh will be ineffective. For this reason, I fully support the view of the Armenian delegation at PACE.”

As reported earlier, the Armenian delegation refused to participate in the first session of a sub-committee on Nagorno-Karabakh held on Monday at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on June 20. The Armenia delegates stressed that existence of such sub-committee endangers the negotiation process on Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement