A SILENCE FRAUGHT WITH CONSEQUENCES

"We have said and continue to say that we have always adhered to universal European values and ideas of peace and stability." It was not a leader of some advanced, democratically developed country that made this statement, but [Armenian President] Serzh Sargsyan, a person who came to power amidst the bloodshed of his own citizens, the president of a country that generally violates human rights, ignores international commitments, spreads enmity and hatred, occupies some of the lands of one of its neighbours and is claiming the land of another. Moreover, the country's president is currently the chairman of the Council of Europe, an organisation whose main aim is to defend the principles of democracy, peace and good-neighbourliness.

The Armenian leader did not depict Armenia as a civilised and peace-loving country in just any old place, but from the rostrum of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, when speaking to those attending the plenary session last week. But almost immediately after that Sargsyan himself let it be understood that the words he had uttered a few minutes earlier regarding his desire to resolve the Nagornyy-Karabakh problem peacefully were simply not true. According to standard procedure, after his speech Sargsyan had to answer questions put by those attending the session. Replying to a question put by the head of Azerbaijan's delegation to the PACE, Samad Seyidov, regarding Armenia's occupation of 20 per cent of Azerbaijan's territory and Yerevan's claims to land in neighbouring Turkey and Georgia, the Armenian president was not the least bit embarrassed to resort to blatant lies and threats in front of his respected audience.First and foremost the Armenian president amazed the audience with the statement that Armenia was not claiming any land in Turkey and, if S. Seyidov was to produce evidence to the contrary, then he, Sargsyan was prepared to apologise to the Azeri deputy. Then the Armenian leader went on, almost openly resorting to the language of blackmail and threats, saying that "Azerbaijan's desire to go on fighting for Nagornyy-Karabakh was likely to lead to the loss of not 20 per cent, but 25 per cent of the republic's territory."
Sadly, not a single participant in the session representing the countries that champion democracy condemned Sargsyan for making such a blatant threat. Although it should be recalled that the PACE representatives are used to hearing such rhetoric from Armenian leaders. In Europe the memory is still fresh of the inappropriate statement by previous Armenian president Robert Kocharyan on the "ethnic incompatibility of Azeris and Armenians" and how he boasted proudly that he had fought in the war against Azerbaijan and participated in occupying a fifth of the republic's territory. This statement was scathingly condemned by Walter Schwimmer, the secretary general of the Council of Europe at that time. Members of the Armenian establishment made timid attempts to put an end to the controversy, but it left a nasty taste in the mouth, so to speak. As his successor's speech showed, this was not without reason.

If we evaluate what Sargsyan said in the light of what followed, then he blatantly lied when he stated that Armenia had no intentions regarding Turkish lands. The claims made on Turkey are registered in Armenia's constitution, and Mount Agrydag, known as Ararat, graces the Armenian coat of arms. What is more, literally a couple of years ago, at a meeting with young Armenians Sargsyan himself concluded by telling them that "our generation has retrieved Nagornyy-Karabakh. Now you are obliged to get back Armenia's eastern lands, that is the areas located in western Turkey.

No matter how offensive the Armenian president's rhetoric might be, it is understandable. By directing his aggressive attacks towards Azerbaijan he keeps on trying to distract Armenia's population from the economic and political crisis in that country. It can however be seen that these statements are not making the Armenian public feel any less stressed. It is noteworthy that another "inconvenient" question posed during his appearance at the PACE was put to Sargsyan by his fellow Armenian. A member of the Armenian delegation to the PACE, Zarui Postandzhyan, asked the president directly about the 70 million euros that he had lost at one of Europe's casinos. There is no need to point out that that question put the president in an extraordinarily embarrassing position in front of those present from all over Europe. The subsequent hasty decision to exclude Zarui Postandzhyan from the Armenian delegation at the PACE is hardly likely to improve the already unseemly image of the terrorist who is currently at the helm in Armenia. 

But this is not the only thing that one finds troubling. Blatant lies, which are an inseparable element of the Armenian leadership's propositions regarding the Nagorno-Karabakh problem, are one thing; but an undisguised threat is quite another, when it basically undermines one of the fundamental commitments of the parties in the conflict to resolve the conflict exclusively by peaceful means, even before these commitments have been adopted at the Council of Europe. The head of a member country of the Council of Europe and more importantly the chairman of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe is not hiding his aggressive attitude towards another full member of the organisation and is openly threatening this member. And all this is taking place with the complete connivance of parliamentary representatives from the countries of civilised Europe. It is as if they were not the ones who signed the PACE resolutions on condemning the occupation of Azerbaijan's lands by Armenia, as if they then listened with sympathy to the Armenian side's "arguments against", describing the "mistaken" formulation in these documents.

It remains to be hoped that the European representatives have now drawn their own conclusions as to who is actually to blame for this conflict as well as for delaying the settlement of it. It remains for Azerbaijan to depend exclusively on its own efforts to resolve the problem of the occupation of its lands, since what has taken place at the PACE has only backed this up. There can be no doubt that, if the Armenian leadership continues to pursue this policy, Azerbaijan will achieve its goal, but Sargsyan and the like-minded types in his entourage, boasting of their crimes, will have to apologise and answer not just to individual deputies, but before the law or according to the rules of wartime.