YEREVAN. – The latest discovery of money laundering and corruption scandals involving Azerbaijani authorities and European MPs is a disgrace.
The Deputy Foreign Minister of Armenia, Shavarsh Kocharyan, on Wednesday told the abovementioned to reporters at the National Assembly.
When asked by Armenian News-NEWS.am as to the steps the Armenian side should take to bring Azerbaijan to account within international organizations, the deputy FM noted: “This is nothing but a trial against Azerbaijan—of course, figuratively, not in a legal viewpoint.
“But what is happening today throughout Europe (…) attests to one thing: patience has run out. The matter is that people are weak-willed even in the heart of Europe, and MPs and officials can’t resist this temptation.”
Kocharyan added that there is a very interesting pattern here: the involved deputies are those whose term of office is coming to an end.
“This is a slap to entire Europe,” the Armenian official noted. “And it’s no accident that Azerbaijan’s response is but one; they say that Armenians did it. (…) They declare that [Azerbaijan president Ilham] Aliyev’s family has nothing to do with it, but they don’t deny that all that happened [without Aliyev’s knowing] (…); this is absurd in itself.”
And in response to Armenian News-NEWS.am’s next question as to whether sanctions can be imposed on the Azerbaijani delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), or it can be deprived of certain powers, the Armenian deputy FM said: “I believe that such a situation will gradually develop.”