October 5, 2009 - 18:48 AMT
Democracy and human rights sacrificed to PACE political interests
Environmental problems and Georgian-Russian war were in focus of PACE autumn session.

"I suppose democratic reforms in Armenia were not included in the agenda because of the process of normalization of Armenian-Turkish relations," Heritage parliamentary group member Zaruhi Postanjyan told a news conference in Yerevan.

"At that, PACE monitoring commission noted some progress in democratic processes in Armenia," she said.

She also informed that discussion of the problems of national minorities in Turkey was withdrawn from the agenda.

"The fact that PACE hailed the process of Turkey-Armenia reconciliation and exclusion of existing problems from the agenda proves that PACE is guided by its political interests but not by democracy or human rights," Postanjyan said.