Theodoros Roussopoulos: A servant of Armenian narratives at PACE's expense How honour is lost on the international stage

Theodoros Roussopoulos, President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), was elected to this position in January of last year, becoming the first Greek politician to hold the post. He was re-elected in January of this year. Azerbaijan did not vote for his candidacy — nor did it intend to. Accordingly, everything this former Greek Minister of State allows himself to say about our country means nothing to us.

And he knows this perfectly well, which is why he permits himself to make flippant, blatantly false, and shamelessly offensive remarks about Azerbaijan and our country’s President.

And now to the point: what exactly did he blurt out? In an interview with Alpha News, Roussopoulos stated, “We are not afraid of Aliyev or anyone else who behaves like a dictator.”

Roussopoulos, a former journalist, political news editor, director and presenter of current affairs programmes, knows perfectly well how easy it is to hide behind the fig leaf of “freedom of speech” while spreading outright fabrications and even paid-for slogans.

This gives rise to a number of simple and logical questions. Who planted this nonsense in Roussopoulos’ head, and when? Perhaps someone frightened him in his younger years so badly that the trauma still lingers? But psychological scars are no excuse for flaunting foolishness on the international stage.

The President of Azerbaijan has never granted Roussopoulos a personal meeting, meaning the latter can only form an opinion of our head of state based on stories from so-called “well-wishers” — those ever eager to fabricate any lie about our country for the right price.

Thanks to the strategy of the President of Azerbaijan, a historic result was achieved — the full restoration of the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. This is a victory not only over Armenia and the global Armenian lobby, but also over a number of politicians who, for years, served the interests of the occupying state while turning a blind eye to its crimes.

An indisputable fact: throughout the years when 20% of Azerbaijani territory was under occupation, Armenia’s delegation in PACE was never stripped of its voting rights. Even when former head of the Karabakh junta and later Armenian President Robert Kocharyan made a racist statement from the PACE tribune about the “genetic incompatibility of Armenians and Azerbaijanis” — what happened? PACE swallowed it without so much as a blink.

And yet, Roussopoulos has never referred to Kocharyan, nor to another member of the Karabakh junta — Armenia’s third president, Serzh Sargsyan — as dictators. This, despite their crimes against both the Armenian and Azerbaijani peoples being well-documented.

Likewise, Roussopoulos has never bothered to provide an objective assessment of Armenia’s crimes during the 44-day war. These wars were fought on the territory of Azerbaijan. Not once have Azerbaijani-Armenian wars taken place on Armenian soil — and yet, rockets were fired from Armenian territory at peaceful Azerbaijani cities such as Ganja and Barda. Hundreds of civilians — elderly people, women, and children — were killed and wounded. Did PACE condemn this barbaric aggression? Of course not.

After Azerbaijan fully restored its sovereignty, PACE went even further in its morally bankrupt policy. On 12 October 2023, it adopted a resolution condemning Azerbaijan’s “military actions in Nagorno-Karabakh” and expressing “concern” about the humanitarian situation.

PACE tried to create the illusion that Azerbaijan was conducting military operations on some kind of “foreign” land, hiding behind the fiction of the so-called “NKR”. A blatant and crude manipulation.

In January 2024, by which time Roussopoulos was already heading PACE, the Assembly decided not to approve the credentials of the Azerbaijani delegation. And in June 2024, yet another resolution was passed — this time containing morally outrageous claims about the “forcible expulsion of Armenians from their ancestral homeland.”

At the same time, PACE demanded the release of the leaders of the Karabakh junta, who stand accused of grave crimes against the Azerbaijani people.

Theodoros Roussopoulos is openly playing to the tune of the Armenian lobby. Is he doing it for free? Only time will tell. There are already plenty of examples of corrupt lobbyists caught red-handed: Robert Menendez, the Democratic senator from New Jersey, convicted of corruption and acting on behalf of foreign interests, and Eva Kaili, the Greek Vice President of the European Parliament, caught with bags full of cash. Both were vocal supporters of Armenian interests.

In Greece, Roussopoulos was a political nobody — in Europe, he’s become something of a waiter for foreign agendas. Only instead of serving wine and olives, he delivers poorly wrapped Armenian narratives.

A citizen of the same country as Roussopoulos, Eva Kaili, during the height of the 44-day war, called for banning Schengen visas for Azerbaijani citizens. Her fate is already sealed. As for Roussopoulos, time will tell.

For now, he shamelessly distorts the statements of the President of Azerbaijan. Roussopoulos’ behaviour isn’t politics — it’s cheap theatre. Apparently, echoes of his past as a television director still linger: Roussopoulos continues to confuse parliament with a TV studio, and official statements with lines from a script.

Speaking at the international forum “Towards a New World Order,” Ilham Aliyev made it clear: PACE decided to punish Azerbaijan for restoring its sovereignty.

“The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe decided to punish Azerbaijan for the restoration of our sovereignty. In September 2023, the separatists were totally eradicated in Karabakh. In January 2024, they decided to deprive our delegation of its voting rights just because of that. Yes, they want to pack it into a kind of human rights issue, but it's not true.

As I said, we have been a part of this institution since 2001, and never before had Azerbaijan’s delegation’s credibility or credentials been doubted. So, it was exactly because we restored our sovereignty and territorial integrity that, several months later, they decided to deprive us of voting rights, and we decided that under these circumstances, we would just come home. Since that time, we have not participated in their sessions,” the head of state stated.

The President also stressed that Azerbaijan did not take part in the election of judges to the European Court of Human Rights, and therefore, all decisions of this court are invalid for the country.

“The Secretary General of the Council of Europe came to Baku last November to attend COP29 and asked me that we do not pull back completely from the organization. I said, ‘Okay, if you ask, we will stay.’ But whether we stay or leave, nothing changes here,” he added.

Roussopoulos’s hysterical, immoral, and deceitful statement only confirms one thing: the President of Azerbaijan was absolutely right.

And what did Roussopoulos ultimately gain? His name now appears on the blacklist alongside 76 PACE members who supported a dubious initiative against Azerbaijan. He won’t be welcome in Georgia either. That leaves Armenia — perhaps there, the Greek politician will be treated to a river cruise, fed crayfish, and offered some brandy.

As for the PACE President — frankly, one is tempted to send him on a long walk… in the spirit of free speech and free thought. A right fully reserved.

Then again, perhaps he has already found his way to the intended destination — and seems to be feeling quite at home there.