Your trusted source

“The transfer of the Karabakh peace talks to other formats will not contribute to a settlement, moreover, but it will damage it.  The OSCE Minsk Group made such a statement ahead of the winter session of PACE,” Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandyan said at a meeting with reporters today when commenting on the PACE votes on two controversial anti-Armenian reports.

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on January 26 voted on two reports:  “Inhabitants of frontier regions of Azerbaijan are deliberately deprived of water” – a scandalous report prepared by Milica Markovic, MP from Bosnia and Herzegovina - was adopted by 98 votes to 71, with 40 abstentions. Another controversial report that drew a wide response - “Escalation of violence in Nagorno-Karabakh and the other occupied territories of Azerbaijan” prepared by British MP Robert Walter who holds Turkish citizenship was rejected in a 66-77 vote.

According to Nalbandyan, the statement of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-chairs  was hardly unexpected to Azerbaijan. “It is another matter that Azerbaijan expresses discontent since the statement was first of all addressed to it. As regards Armenia, we said the same thing as the Co-chairs. Our opinions coincide in this issue,” he said.

In his words, by not backing Walter’s report, the PACE members  voted for the peace process.
Speaking about Bosnian MP Milica Markovic’s report on the Sarsang reservoir, Nalbandyan said that the report was discussed by PACE’s Committee on Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development, and not the Committee on Political Affairs, although the report’s author attempted to include some political wordings in it.

“Despite the Co-chairs’;calls, it was not the first time that Azerbaijan tried to use PACE regarding a Karabakh settlement. Azerbaijan is deliberately doing everything to hinder the C0-chairs’ efforts and damage the current format of talks because Azerbaijan fails to impose its one-sided position at the negotiating table against the position of OSCE and the European Parliament.  It tries to find consolation in other formats,” E, Nalbandyan noted.

Speaking about the work of the Armenian side, the foreign minister said that Armenian diplomats have done and will do everything to prevent steps aimed at damaging the Karabakh settlement.