STRASBOURG. –  Since accession to the Council of Europe, our country has born profound responsibility for honoring our obligations and respecting our collective commitment to the fundamental values of this organization, President of Armenia said in his address to PACE.

“However, in recent years, we have witnessed an unfortunate and unprecedented crisis of values in this organization: through their irresponsible conduct, to say the least, some MPs have acted contrary to the core mission of the Council of Europe and inflicted heavy damage upon the organization’s reputation. The greater family of the Council of Europe thus faced perhaps the most serious challenge since its foundation, as cases of bribing Assembly members and resulting dishonest voting were exposed.

Since 2014, a number of politically biased and egregious reports and resolutions triggered a sharp change in the attitudes of Armenian society towards this Assembly.

However, these revelations justify the hopes that such corrupt practices are short-lived. Eventually, they will rise to the surface, stamping out resolutions thus adopted, and discrediting the individuals and powers that back them. I am convinced that the report of the independent inquiry body looking into the exposed instances of corruption will eradicate those defective practices and help to strengthen the member States’ trust in our organization,” Sargsyan added.