The Yerevan session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights featured, among others, a discussion about the humanitarian consequences resulting from the Azeri attack in Nagorno-Karabakh, a senior lawmaker has said.
PACE has decided to hold the committee session in Armenia on December 9-10.Vladimir Vardanyan, a Member of Parliament, chair of the parliamentary committee on state-legal affairs and a member of the PACE Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, was asked by reporters whether the Armenian delegation will raise the issue of the POWs held in Azerbaijan.
“We can’t form the agenda,” Vardanyan said. “But of course during the discussions about holding this session in Armenia we couldn’t avoid discussing these issues. The agenda issues included the legal and humanitarian consequences that had to do with the aftermath of the Azerbaijan military operation in Nagorno-Karabakh.
We’ve had the opportunity to discuss these issues. We discussed it in a closed format within the framework of the agenda,” Vardanyan said.
Vardanyan said PACE did whatever it could in the matter of POWs: the resolutions adopted in PACE clearly called for an urgent release of the POWs.
“We can’t demand PACE to do anything more. All agenda issues related to the POWs were raised, and received their solutions in the resolutions,” the MP said.
He reminded that PACE has not ratified the Azerbaijani delegation’s credentials this year, and hence the Azeri delegates are not participating in the sessions.
December 9 marks the adoption of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, while December 10 is Human Rights Day. The session is held in Yerevan also due to discussions about these issues and the commemoration days.
