Armenia once again pushing blatantly manipulative messages at PACE Commentary of Ukrainian MP

Manipulation and provocation. These two words are clearly characteristic of Armenian media news on what happened at PACE. Referring to the Facebook page of Ruben Rubinyan, head of the Armenian delegation to PACE, these media outlets joyfully reported that "PACE passed a resolution on 'Ensuring free and safe access through the Lachin corridor'".

The manipulation is that this conclusion does not reflect the position of the whole Assembly at all - the document was prepared by its Committee on Migration, Refugees, and Displaced Persons. To make it clearer, it is as if the residents of one apartment of a multistorey building decided that their neighbour has done something wrong and should be disciplined. That is, it is the opinion of the tenants of one apartment and not of the whole building. Not to mention the fact that as a rule not all of the tenants take part in this kind of discussion.

In our case, the procedure is as follows: 20 deputies from several countries of one or another PACE committee collect signatures to present a resolution to the Bureau. Then this Bureau puts the draft document to a vote. It is worth mentioning that 48 deputies of PACE voted for the resolution, and 16 voted against it. And this is despite the fact that there are 612 deputies in the Assembly - 306 chief representatives and 306 deputies.

These statistics alone are enough to understand the inappropriateness of Armenia's jubilation, particularly Rubinyan himself. If only because PACE deputies from 24 countries (of 46) did not participate in the voting on the anti-Azerbaijani resolution. The fact that it is purely recommendatory in nature, given the scale of the Armenian manipulation, is somehow embarrassing to even recall.

Attention should, however, be drawn to Rubinyan's claim that the Azerbaijani delegation "did everything to change the resolution or derail it, but achieved nothing". This is also a manipulation. The Azerbaijani delegation to PACE insisted on an objective assessment of the situation. It is the right approach. Because the entire resolution was based on blatantly false messages. In fact, Rubinyan himself admitted it. He was the one who stated that about 60 amendments proposed by the Azerbaijani side were rejected. That is, the fact that all the false, one-sided anti-Azerbaijani documents are pushed through the PACE with little or no additional verification and proper discussion is evident.

"Contrary to what Azerbaijan claims, the PACE resolution clearly states that there is no free and safe movement in the Lachin corridor," wrote a jubilant Rubinyan, completely unaware that he has once again put himself and those who drafted the paper and voted for it in the most ridiculous light. Because the Azerbaijani side has ample video and photographic evidence of Karabakh Armenians peacefully travelling along the Lachin road, through the checkpoint established there.

As for the PACE call to "urgently resolve the rights and security issues of the Nagorno-Karabakh Armenian population through dialogue between Baku and Stepanakert", as Rubinyan says, this is also a blatant lie. There is no Stepanakert. There is Khankendi, which is a city in the Karabakh economic region of Azerbaijan. And Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan recently had to admit this publicly.

The Armenian premier declared that he recognizes the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan within 86.6 thousand square kilometres. That is, together with the Karabakh economic region, where there is no "stepanakert", but Khankendi. However, there are thousands of people of Armenian nationality living in this region of Azerbaijan quite illegally, holding Armenian passports, to whom official Baku has repeatedly offered two options for resolving the issue: to recognise the Azerbaijani Constitution and obtain the relevant identity documents or to leave in peace in the country whose passport holders they are.

The fact that PACE passed a resolution that did not take into account such important points as the fact of illegal residence of holders of Armenian passports on our territory, as well as the fact that they "did not hear" the absolutely logical proposals of official Baku, only says that this document is not worth the paper on which it is written. And it certainly will not affect the further development of the situation on the Lachin road.

And the last thing. Rapporteur on the resolution was Irish PACE deputy Paul Gavan. However, he had no right to express the opinion of the committee. The head of the PACE Committee on Migration, Refugees, and Displaced Persons was absent from the session. Consequently, the Committee's Vice-President, Ukrainian MP Oleksiy Goncharenko, had to read out the text of the resolution.

I contacted him. And Goncharenko said in a comment for Caliber.Az that he was only a moderator in this story. He himself did not vote for this anti-Azerbaijani resolution. And this is his position and his attitude to the "document" made up of lies and insinuations. By the way, none of the representatives of the Ukrainian delegation to the PACE voted for the resolution. This is an important point, given Ukraine's great weight in this structure and the current importance of the Ukrainian issue in the Assembly. But, clearly, Rubinyan said nothing about it. Because he aimed at replicating blatantly manipulative information.

Akber Hasanov