President: PACE Subcommittee on Karabakh incompetent in decision making

June 22, 2011 - 18:25 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net - The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) Subcommittee on Nagorno Karabakh will be unable to take useful decisions, and it has no respective mandate, according to Armeniam President Serzh Sargsyan.

“There is no more competent format for the resolution of this problem, than the OSCE Minsk Group,” the President told PACE plenary meeting.

He also noted that it is unclear for Armenia what the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe expects from the subcommittee on Karabakh underlining that the activity of the panel will not be efficient without participation of the Armenian delegation.

A meeting of the PACE ad hoc committee on Nagorno-Karabakh was conducted on the first working day of the PACE summer session on June 20 in Strasbourg. The ad hoc committee started its work with participation of Azerbaijani delegation and representatives of the PACE Secretariat. Armenian delegation refused to attend the meeting citing its unaltered position on ad hoc committee creation.

As the head of the Armenian delegation in PACE David Harutyunyan stated earlier, the delegation has no intention to participate in a process which bodes nothing but unpredictable consequences and new tensions. Besides, the Armenian delegation proposed Azerbaijan a total moratorium on any mutually accusatory statements during two sessions of the Assembly.

On January 28 PACE sitting the Spanish parliamentarian Jordi Xucla i Costa was appointed as chairman of the subcommittee. Actually the panel revived its work after long suspension through the initiative of Mevlut Cavusoglu, the PACE President representing Turkey.

The conflict between Nagorno Karabakh and Azerbaijan

The conflict between Nagorno Karabakh and Azerbaijan broke out as result of the ethnic cleansing launched by the Azeri authorities in the final years of the Soviet Union. The Karabakh War was fought from 1991 (when the Nagorno Karabakh Republic was proclaimed) to 1994 (when a ceasefire was sealed by Armenia, NKR and Azerbaijan). Most of Nagorno Karabakh and a security zone consisting of 7 regions are now under control of NKR defense army. Armenia and Azerbaijan are holding peace talks mediated by the OSCE Minsk Group up till now.