STRASBOURG. - The Winter Session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) got underway Monday in Strasbourg, France. And PACE Bureau session was held in the morning, member of Armenia’s delegation at PACE, and the ruling coalition’s Prosperous Armenia Party MP, Naira Zohrabyan told Armenian News-NEWS.am, from Strasbourg.   

“The infamous Subcommittee on Karabakh presented a one-page program, whereby proposing to the Bureau that the Subcommittee’s activities continue this year as well. Our member at the Bureau is [the coalition’s Republican Party of Armenia] RPA representative Hermine Naghdalyan, who presented the Armenian side’s viewpoint that the activity of such subcommittee is unacceptable. Ms. Naghdalyan motioned that the matter be included in the discussions of another day, when the new Bureau is elected. But Turkey’s representative Mevlut Cavusoglu was moderating the Bureau’s morning session, and the Bureau decided to continue with the Subcommittee’s activities in 2012, too,” Zohrabyan noted, and added: “This has no importance for us. The Armenian delegation will continue to boycott [the Subcommittee].”              

In Naira Zohrabyan’s words, PACE’s session has a very busy agenda. She informed that the tenure of Thomas Hammarberg, the Human Rights Commissioner of the Council of Europe, is coming to an end, and that three candidates—from Belgium, Lithuania, and the Netherlands—are nominated for this office.  

And Monday’s session is already being moderated by PACE’s new President, Jean-Claude Mignon from France, who replaced Mevlut Cavusoglu, on the same day, who had presided over PACE for the past two years, Naira Zohrabyan also informed.