PanARMENIAN.Net – The authorities of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic are considering the letter of Robert Walter, a former British MP, member of the Committee on Political Affairs and Democracy of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), author of the report titled “Escalation of Violence in Nagorno-Karabakh and Other Occupied Territories of Azerbaijan.”
It is become known to Tert.am that the day before, Robert Walter had sent an official letter to the authorities of Nagorno-Karabakh to obtain permission to visit Stepanakert in order to complete the report. Press Secretary of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Nagorno-Karabakh Ani Sargsyan in an interview with Tert.am first confirmed the receipt of a letter from Walter, and then added that the letter is under consideration. Walter was in Baku on 12-13 March with the mission to find facts. Earlier, the press secretary of the President of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic (NKR) David Babayan said that the likelihood that Robert Walter will change the title of his report on Nagorno-Karabakh – “The escalation of violence in Nagorno-Karabakh and other occupied territories of Azerbaijan” – is zero.
On October 1, 2014, the PACE Political Affairs Committee instructed the deputy Robert Walter, known for his pro-Azerbaijani approach, to prepare a report on Nagorno-Karabakh, one whose name became the subject of a scandal and the object of harsh criticism – “The escalation of violence in Nagorno-Karabakh and other occupied territories of Azerbaijan”. Earlier it was reported that R. Walter can enter the NKR from the Azerbaijani territory, but this did not happen.
“Nothing like this could happen, it’s just out of the question. First of all, we expressed to him the point of view of the official Stepanakert that it is necessary to change both the title and the content of the report. This did not happen, therefore speculation on the topic of crossing the border is simply out of place”, said D. Babayan.
According to him, R. Walter has already shown his true face: during the preparation of the report, he visited Azerbaijan, retained the title of the document and received appropriate “tips” for it in the form of caviar. To the question, how to respond to the Armenian diplomacy in this case, D. Babayan replied: “There is nothing to do Armenian diplomacy here”. “It’s like a crime, on the baisis of this report are corruption phenomena. What can our diplomacy do in this case? We took all necessary measures, however, this person did not visit either Armenia or Artsakh during the preparation of the report. The problem is that we see similar negative developments in other European structures too.
In fact, caviar diplomacy leads to the formation of caviar democracy in Europe, that is, to the degradation of classical democracy. Nobody conducts an investigation, this is the main problem, and not the report, which is subjective and will not make any difference”, noted D. Babayan.
He again stressed that “this is a commissioned report, in fact, made up in Azerbaijan by President Ilham Aliyev and Foreign Minister Elmar Mamedyarov, and Robert Walter only signed”. Back in October 2014, the Armenian delegation to PACE stated that it would boycott the report and the commission on Karabakh, as they harm the Karabakh process. According to Ermin Naghdalyan, the vice-speaker of the National Assembly of Armenia, the head of the Armenian delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, it is known that the proposal to prepare this report has been discussed for several months and the Armenian delegation disputed the need to prepare this report in plenary session, after which, according to the statute, he challenged him in the political committee.
“The meaning of this step on our part was that we would give our participants a more detailed and reasoned view of our position, in particular, why we do not support the idea of preparing the report. We reported that this is an attempt undertaken by Azerbaijan to obstruct the process within the framework of the OSCE Minsk Group, as the basis for the submitted resolutions Azerbaijan lays out the thesis that the Minsk Group is not making progress. Of course, we had no illusions about the outcome of the meeting of the committee, especially since the September 29 vote in the Assembly made the outcome of the discussion at the meeting obvious in advance, in addition, there is an unwritten law in PACE: Appeals against decisions of the Bureau are almost always rejected. The main purpose during the discussion in the committee was to present our position, we did not expect that any changes would be achieved. We stated that addressing this issue is considered harmful and dangerous, since this may pose a threat to the fragile peace in the region. Therefore, we do not see the need for this work and will not take part in the process of preparing this report, not cooperate with the committee”, she said.
At the same time, she recalled that the resolutions of the Council of Europe are not binding and are only recommendatory. One of the main objectives of the Council of Europe is to maintain respect among member states of the Council of Europe, and such initiatives do not serve this purpose at all, but, on the contrary, lead to clashes, hostile relations.
Commenting on the appointment of British speaker Robert Walter to the PACE rapporteur on the situation in Karabakh, Naghdalyan said: “British parliamentarians seem to have a monopoly on preparing reports on our direction. All speakers on the issue of Karabakh in PACE were representatives of Great Britain – Thierry Davis, David Atkinson, and now Robert Walter. This, perhaps, is a manifestation of their exceptional love for us, which we, in all likelihood, should rejoice. The issue of Nagorno-Karabakh is a matter of the fundamental right of peoples – the right of nations to self-determination. And the destinies of the peoples are not solved either by reports or by votes. The problem of Nagorno-Karabakh is solved by the people of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, who won in the war imposed on him and are currently building a democratic state”.