A TEMPORARY DEVIATION VS. A CONSTANT REGRESS

Under the leadership of PER SYORGEN, the delegation of the Ago Monitoring Group of the CoE Council of Ministers yesterday met with Foreign Minister VARDAN OSKANYAN. Along with other issues, the parties discussed the ways of overcoming the internal political tensions continuing after the March 1 events.

In a joint press conference convened at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs the European official first stated that the Group which had arrived in Armenia was an unprecedented and influential delegation consisting of 9 members, i.e. delegates representing 9 countries. This means that considering Armenia a European state, the European Union is deeply “concerned about and interested in” the complex situation resulting from the mass disorders of March 1.
The Ago group submitted to V. Oskanyan a package of proposals consisting of 6 points.
Detailing the “strategy” of the CoE Council of Ministers, the speaker notified that the first proposal concerns the protection of the rights of the individuals detained in connection with the March 1 incidents. “Yesterday, we visited the penitentiary of ‘Kentron’ district and were informed that the detainees were isolated from their families,” he stated, adding that the previous day he had managed to discuss the issue with the Prosecutor General and Foreign Minister, and they had expressed assurance that the problem would be solved in a couple of days’ time.”
Second, “The European Union supports the international organizations which have called for releasing the individuals detained with political considerations.” While answering the questions, the speaker did not make it clear how to distinguish the individuals detained with political considerations from those inciting disorders and provocations, and if the organizers of the “peaceful rallies” have made statements and committed actions resulting in murders, ravage and vandalism, whether this constitutes a “political activity” or a grave criminal offence.
The second demand (or proposal) advanced to the RA authorities, particularly the Minister of Justice, is that the authorities shall periodically and at regular intervals notify the Council of Ministers of both the process of releasing the detainees and the judicial procedures.
The fourth enshrined in the document is quite “fuzzy”. It proposes the RA authorities to conduct an impartial and “independent investigation” and clarify all the circumstances of the March 1 disorders.
As to how the group of “independent investigators” will be set up and who will be its members, Head of the delegation is not aware of it; nor does he want to go into details. The only thing he definitely knows is that it should be a “national” investigation. That’s to say, “Such investigation shall be conducted by the state” and not the international investigators, as expected by the activists of the liberation movement.
The fifth point of the proposals concerns the changes regulating the rights and liberties envisaged by the law on “Marches, Demonstrations and Rallies”. “We regret that the law was adopted in conditions of the regime of the state of emergency, without consultations and discussions with the European Union. The Venice Committee has conducted an urgent expertise of the newly adopted law and has criticizing assessments which have already been submitted to the Ministry of Justice and the Government. We anticipate the Government to raise those questions in the Parliament,” Mr. Syorgen said. He also added that “the freedom of gatherings cannot be a subject of bargainings”.
And finally, by proposing the 6th point, the Ago group calls on the “parties” to initiate, without preconditions, a round table discussion over the issues of concern. This is proposed as a key to decreasing the tension and as a settlement of the “conflict” between the authorities and the opposition.
What sanctions shall be applied against Armenia should the proposals be ignored? In response to this question, the speaker uttered some hazy words about “responsibility”, without concretizing ideas.
One of the journalists was interested to know to what extent the “Armenian side” was inclined to meet the Ago group initiative half-way. In response to the question, the Foreign Minister noted that the issue was still to be considered on the level of the acting President and the President-elect, so the authorities’ attitude towards the CoE initiative is still to be seen.
In general, V. Oskanyan finds that the European community, and particularly, the delegates of the Ago Group consider us, Armenians, “to be on the right path, and what happened on March 1 is not a constant regress but rather, a temporary deviation from the adopted course. And our task is to undertake the right steps to get the country on a normal and democratic path as quickly as possible.”

AZERBAIJAN PLAYS A DIRTY TRICK
In response to the questions, V. Oskanyan touched upon the recent exacerbations of the Azerbaijani blackmail tactics, including the Foreign Ministry’s statement saying that Azerbaijan has rejected “the request of the Armenian side” to organize a meeting between Ilham Aliev and Serge Sargsyan within the frameworks of the NATO summit. “It’s too bad Azerbaijan has refused to organize a meeting, but the Armenian side has neither made a request nor acted as an initiator. “The proposal was advanced by the Co-Chairs. Our answer was, ‘if you make the proposal and Azerbaijan agrees, we will agree too.’ Azerbaijan is playing a dirty trick. What it is doing is not, anyway, in harmony with the steps they have been making recently”.
LILIT POGHOSYAN

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