June 5, 2003 - 23:00 AMT
CE NOT TO APPLY SANCTIONS AGAINST ARMENIA DURING SUMMER SESSION
The Council of Europe (CE) will not apply sanctions against Armenia in the course of the summer session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the CE June 23-27. PACE Armenian delegation head, chairman of the parliamentary commission on foreign issues Hovhannes Hovhannisian expressed such confidence in an interview to "Arminfo" agency. He flatly denied the rumor being exaggerated on the possible expulsion of Armenia from the CE. In his words, in the course of the summer session the PACE observation mission report on the presidential and parliamentary election in Armenia will be discussed. Moreover, H. Hovhannisian noted, the report on territories, in which application of the European Convention on Human Rights is impossible, and the report on European autonomies will also be heard. In Hovhannisian's words, against the background of these reports the situation in Nagorno Karabakh may be discussed. In the course of the summer session the report on political prisoners in Azerbaijan will also be considered, in the light of which the issue of arrests following the presidential election in Armenia may be touched on. Simultaneously to the PACE summer session, a sitting of the commission on human rights will be held, in the course of which the issue of Armenia's ratification of the 6-th protocol of the European Convention on Human Rights providing for repeal of death penalty will be discussed.