The visit was a great success, and we made great achievements. This is what head of the Armenian delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) Ruben Rubinyan told reporters today, touching upon the subsequent session of the PACE.
“In particular, the new members of the delegation were able to be nominated for major posts of the PACE a year after restructuring of the delegation, including vice-chair of a political group, chairman of the human rights and legal affairs committee, representative of the Venice Commission within the committee and vice-chair of sub-committee on media and information society,” he declared, adding that this serves as a good opportunity for the Armenian delegation to have a greater impact within the PACE.
Rubinyan informed that the Armenian delegation had presented a draft declaration on the 30th anniversary of the Baku pogroms, collected the required signatures, after which the declaration was posted on the official website of the PACE.
In her turn, member of the delegation Naira Zohrabyan stated that Azerbaijan had been succeeding in overturning the draft at the PACE with its ‘laundromat’ and ‘caviar diplomacy’ for many years, but now there is a criminal case against former vice-president of the PACE who received 2.3 million from Azerbaijan for overturning the draft. “It’s clear that Azerbaijan can’t work with its tools anymore, at least not at the PACE. The Armenian delegation also made its contribution. The main speaker stated that Azerbaijan is the only Council of Europe-member state where the situation regarding human rights protection remains devastating,” she said.
