PACE DEPUTIES FORGOT INTERNATIONAL LAW

PanARMENIAN.Net - The deputies of the Assembly turned down the initiative of the Armenian delegation to withdraw from the report text the proposal saying that ''during the last years no progress in the liberation of Nagorno Karabakh and other occupied territories was fixed''. Only the proposal of the Italian delegation to cancel the word ''other'' was accepted. This amendment essentially changes the sense of the phrase however, it is still rather provoking. In the new edition Karabakh was not called an ''occupied territory''. The deputies of the Assembly consider only the security zone controlled by Karabakh forces an ''occupied territory''. The issue is disputable but not new. What is new is that the matter concerns ''liberation'' of Nagorno Karabakh.

If the matter concerns liberating Karabakh from Armenians, it is Genocide. If it is necessary to see Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan, this is an attempt to define the result of negotiations between the conflict parties. In this case, which is the need of negotiations, if the Council of Europe has already decided that Karabakh will be part of Azerbaijan? But in the text of the report on Azerbaijan an amendment extracted from the report on Armenia was included. This means that the Assembly deputies equate Karabakh with the so-called ''occupied territories''. The control of Karabakh forces over 5 regions of Azerbaijan can have different assessments. But the fact that PACE ignores the right of people on self-determination, does not do it credit. It contradicts the norms of international law.

Another blunder of PACE deputies was that in the text of the report, at the request of Baku legislators, a phrase about the ''conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan for Karabakh'' was included. While it is known that OSCE has confirmed that it knows 3 conflict parties – Armenia, Azerbaijan and Nagorno Karabakh. We shall remind that during the OSCE Budapest summit the necessity of direct negotiations between the three parties of the conflict was underlined. This the principle followed by the Minsk group co-chairmen which are stating the necessity of involving the Karabakh authorities in the negotiations. The decision of the Assembly contradicts the Bishkek agreement signed by the representatives of Yerevan, Baku and Stepanakert. It means that in Strasburg they doubt even the things that recently were considered undoubtful by the Azerbaijani authorities. The decisions adopted at the PACE session, evidently will not contribute to the success of negotiations in the frames of the Minsk group. The mediators that have to coordinate the peace process, will hardly be satisfied with not very correct phrases made by the deputies of the Assembly.