The frantic situation in Armenia’s political environment did not subside for a long time after PACE’s January session adopted Resolution 2085 (2016) titled “Inhabitants of frontier regions of Azerbaijan are deliberately deprived of water”.

Taking advantage of any opportunities, representatives of the Armenian elite did not hesitate to openly humiliate, slander and insult Azerbaijan, the PACE members who voted for the resolution, everyone who referred to this resolution, as well as PACE leadership. This time, Pedro Agramunt, who became PACE’s new president in early 2016, was the target of Armenia’s “voice of truth”.

Addressing the Council of Europe Committee of Representatives in February 2016 and during his official visit to Baku in early March, Mr. Agramunt openly declared that Nagorno-Karabakh and other territories of Azerbaijan have been occupied by Armenia with Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding districts being under occupation for over 20 years in violation of international norms.

Following the PACE president’s speeches, the Armenian media claimed “the PACE president was unaware of his duties”. Mr. Agramunt was described as someone “serving Azerbaijan’s interests”, unworthy and baseless expressions of him were designed to humiliate him.

There arose a logical question: Why were Armenian officials and politicians infuriated by speeches of Mr. Agramunt?! The point is that reiterating the expression “Azerbaijan’s Nagorno-Karabakh and other occupied territories”, as envisaged in Resolution 2085 (2016), PACE President Pedro Agramunt said that Armenia’s international limit of “untouchability” was over.

By saying this, he declared that the policy aimed at preventing Armenia’s recognition as an aggressor state since 1990s failed. This was one of the most serious issues that panicked and annoyed Armenia.

Besides, PACE President Pedro Agramunt was first among the leaders of international organizations and high-rankingofficials, who officially announced the occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh and other territories of Azerbaijan by Armenia. Exactly for this reason, he was targeted by the Armenian government, the media and politicians.

Armenia was claiming that the adoption of the document, reflecting the occupation, damaged the activities of the OSCE Minsk Group, and it was only the OSCE Minsk Group that must deal with this problem. The failure of the OSCE Minsk Group to make gains for 25 years for the resolution of the problem and Armenia’s efforts to hide its aggressive policies under the “Nagorno-Karabakh conflict” directly serves Armenia’s interests. Though relevant or irrelevant, Armenia was unnecessarily pointing to a peaceful resolution of the problem, claiming that the adoption of the resolution by PACE was hampering the peace process. On the contrary, the admission that the document, calling for an end to the occupation and the withdrawal of the Armenian armed forces from the occupied lands does not hamper a peaceful solution of the problem. Actually, Resolution 2085 (2016) is a contribution to a peaceful settlement of the problem.

Finally, being branded as an occupier was exasperating Armenia. Therefore, by all means, the officials of this country are trying to keep the expression “Nagorno-Karabakh conflict” in use to cover up their occupying policies, and to prevent the useof “Nagorno-Karabakh and other occupied territories of Azerbaijan”, though late, from being endorsed in the public, political and scientific circles.

In general, Azerbaijan’s recent foreign policy achievements, particularly, in international organizations on various issues, have caused tense nervousness among the Armenian lobby and other anti-Azerbaijani forces. Two issues are main sources of these successes – the failure of the efforts to put pressure through the alleged human rights violations and political prisoners’ issues and the adoption of the resolutions on the ongoing occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh and other seven districts of Azerbaijan.

While one of the indicators of these successes was the rejection of Christoph Strässer’s report on “The follow-up to the issue of political prisoners in Azerbaijan” overwhelmingly by PACE members, the other one was the stipulation in provisions of different documents of the occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh and other territories of Azerbaijan by Armenia.

The latest document that was endorsed was Resolution 2085 (2016), entitled “Inhabitants of frontier regions of Azerbaijan are deliberately deprived of water” prepared by MP Milica Markovic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The resolution confirmed the occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh and other territories of Azerbaijan by Armenia and demanded the immediate withdrawal of the Armenian armed forces from the occupied lands.

The document also underlined that the environmental crisis committed by Armenia against Azerbaijan was an environmental aggression, indicating that the current situation on the Sarsang water reservoir, located in an area of Azerbaijan occupied by Armenia, might result in a humanitarian disaster.

The resolution, as a whole, unanimously determines that Armenia is responsible for the occupation of Azerbaijan’s territories and its consequences. To challenge these successes, the Armenian lobby and other anti-Azerbaijani forces invented bogus investigation, called “caviar diplomacy” to claim that all the achievements were possible thanks to bribing of European MPs. Regrettably, this issue was also in the media of countries, where the pro-Armenian and anti-Azerbaijani forces were strong.

Italian media and TV programs under influence of the Armenian lobby were mobilized in this regard. One of them was “Report” program aired on Rai 3 TV Channel. The program presenter, Milena Gabanelli, was regularly engaged in anti-Azerbaijani activities. She repeatedly interviewed an Armenian, who illegally visited occupied Azerbaijani territories and Armenia, whereas, she did not interview anyone from Azerbaijan and broadcast one-sided, biased and unfair report about Azerbaijan. The majority of those, who attended the program as experts, were Armenians.

Later Milena Gabanelli’s “Report” program was taken off the air for regular biased, severe and unfair opinions, and it was even revealed that a 300-million euro lawsuit was filed against the channel and the program. As the program spread biased and slanderous information about individuals, “Report” program and Rai 3 TV Channel were sued several times, and a large amount of compensation lawsuits were brought against them.

Armenians have continued their large-scale provocations against Azerbaijan. Milica Markovic, the author of PACE Resolution 2085 (2016), titled “Inhabitants of frontier regions of Azerbaijan are deliberately deprived of water”, was subjected to various pressure and a campaign of blackmail.

Thus, as Bosnia and Herzegovina media reported, an anonymous letter was sent to the parliament and the media outlets of the country late in 2016. The letter claimed that in early 2016 when PACE-approved Resolution 2085 was under preparation, the author of the resolution, MP Milica Markovic, did not collaborate with Armenians and prepared a fully biased for Armenians report. The letter accused Milica Markovic directly of taking bribe when drawing up the resolution.

We should note that the author of the letter tried to purposefully deceive the country’s parliamentarians and the public. Thus, while Resolution 2085 was in the pipeline, Armenians refused to collaborate with the rapporteur despite the insistence of the rapporteur and the leadership of PACE.

Namely, for this reason, Item 8 of the resolution read: “The Assembly firmly condemns the lack of co-operation by the Armenian parliamentary delegation and the Armenian authorities during the preparation of the report on this issue. The Assembly regards such behavior as incompatible with the obligations and commitments of a country which is a full member of the Council of Europe. The Assembly will consider what measures to take in this and in any similar cases, which may arise during the terms of office of its parliamentarians.”

The anonymous letter sent to the Parliament of Bosnia and Herzegovina was immediately made public and disseminated by MP Mladen Bosic. Interviewed on the letter, Mladen Bosic said he had met Armenian delegates and heard the same allegations, accusing Ms. Markovic of preparing a document against Armenians as a Christian.

For her turn, Ms. Markovic in her interview to the local media noted that she had investigated and found out that the author of the letter was not Armenians, but Ambassador of Permanent Delegation of Bosnia and Herzegovina to PACE Mr. Predrag Grgic.

According to the media reports, Ms. Markovic immediately got in touch with the ambassador. Though he refused it first, later he admitted to writing the letter at request of Mr. Mladen Bosic. Mr. Predrag Grgic said that the letter was not meant to be made public, adding it was just prepared to inform Mr. Bosic.

According to the Bosnia and Herzegovina media, former rapporteur Ms. Markovic sued both the head of delegation of this country to PACE, Bosic, and Ambassador Grgic. Being seriously anxious about developments, Ambassador Grgic through the media outlets announced that MP Mladen Bosic had deceived him and acted irresponsibly by forwarding the letter to the media. The local media also informed that Mladen Bosic did not answer phone calls by journalist after this statement of Grgic.

Armenians continued their propaganda against our country in different places and contexts…

In the meantime, as of December 2015, the Armenian government mobilized all efforts to prevent the endorsement of both reports. Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan sent a letter to European People’s Party (EPP) President Joseph Daul on 15 December 2015, in which, he said: “I would like to draw your attention to two documents, titled “The escalation of the violence in Nagorno-Karabakh and other occupied territories of Azerbaijan” and “Inhabitants of frontier regions of Azerbaijan are deliberately deprived of water” on the agenda of PACE’s winter session from 25 to 29 January 2016.

Serzh Sargsyan claimed that the titles of the draft resolutions foretold the “biased and dangerous nature of them”, noting cunningly that they had been passed by the committees on political and social affairs, contradicting PACE’s rules of procedures, as well as the Code of Conduct of PACE rapporteurs. He also claimed that the fact-finding mission was not sent to Armenia and/or to Nagorno-Karabakh.

In his letter, he said that “the draft resolutions added a new language to the ongoing Nagorno-Karabakh peace process”, claiming “it contradicts the terminology used by the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs (Russia, France and the U.S.), the only agreed negotiations format”. In the end, Sargsyan asked EPP President Joseph Daul “to inform PACE members from the EPP of the incalculable harmful nature of the abovementioned draft resolutions” and urge them “to vote down the documents at the 26 January 2016 session of the Assembly”.

In view of Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan’s request, a day before the voting, he openly urged all EPP members to vote against the draft resolutions: “… nowadays there are too many conflicts worldwide. For the solution of those conflicts, let us not interfere with the missions of special international groups, one of them being the OSCE Minsk Group.”

We should also note that in letters to the heads of the national delegations and PACE President Anne Brasseur, the head of French delegation in PACE, Rene Rouquet, said that “I had read Robert Walter’s report on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict with deep regret”. Rene Rouquet added that he was surprised that “the report was completely out of touch with the historical aspect of the problem”.

He made assumptions concerning the history of the region as an amateur and claimed “it is not an ordinary conflict; it is a part of a big history, and for this reason, without an explanation, one should not speak about Azerbaijan’s “occupied territories” as if it began early in 1990s. He also drew attention to another report against Armenia on the agenda, stressing that the approval of these reports would cast doubt on the integrity of PACE as a reliable institution.

Moreover, the Armenian leadership contacted presidents, prime ministers and foreign ministers of PACE member states and demanded that the national delegations of PACE member states to vote against the draft resolutions.

-In January 2016, the Armenian Foreign Ministry seconded its diplomats to PACE member states with special instructions to persuade those countries to force their PACE delegates to vote against the draft resolutions.

-Official representatives of the Armenian Churches demanded that delegates of those countries reject the draft resolutions.

-NGOs functioning in Armenia and in the self-styled “NKR”, as well as the president of the Bratislava-based Forum of the Armenian Associations in Europe inundated PACE members with letters, “advising” them against supporting the draft resolutions.

-Establishing intensive relations with prominent public, political and cultural figures of PACE member states, the Armenian government sought their influence on PACE members to vote down the draft resolutions.

– Armenian MPs Levon Zurabyan and Armen Rustamyan sent letters to the members of PACE’s ALDE and Socialists groups respectively, urging them to vote down the draft resolutions at the 26 January session of the Assembly.

As a result of the efforts of the Armenian state, ahead of the PACE session, foreign ministers and other senior officials of the PACE member states instructed members of their relevant national delegations to vote against the draft reports.

Ahead of the session and on the days when the session was underway in Strasbourg, the Armenian parliamentary speaker, officials held secret meetings with the heads of the delegations with Armenian NGOs in intensive brainwashing process, exerting pressure on parliamentarians to vote down the draft reports.

When the session was underway, numerous Armenian diplomats used to walk around the Parliamentary Assembly building to keep PACE members under control.

We should note that ahead of the voting neither members of the Armenian delegation, nor pro-Armenian parliamentarians tabled proposals to Robert Walter’s report, titled “Escalation of violence in Nagorno-Karabakh and other occupied territories of Azerbaijan”.

The only overriding reason why no amendments were tabled to Walter’s draft report at all was to achieve its rejection and complete withdrawal from the agenda for once and forever. Nevertheless, though both Armenia and anti-Azerbaijani forces were trying to prevent the passage of both draft reports, the key target was to block Robert Walter’s report on “Escalation ofviolence in Nagorno-Karabakh and other occupied territories of Azerbaijan”.

Finally, during the 26 January 2016 PACE plenary session, the draft report by Robert Walter on “Escalation of violence in Nagorno-Karabakh and other occupied territories of Azerbaijan” was voted down with difference of four votes, that is, 66 to 70 with 45 abstentions.

By reaching this decision, the Assembly displayed disrespect for the Committee on Political Affairs and its previous decisions on the problem. Moreover, PACE openly showed disrespect not only for its own decisions, but also for decisions and resolutions of other international institutions, such as UN Security Council, and UN General Assembly, the European Parliament, the OSCE PA on the occupation of Azerbaijani territories.

On the same day, at PACE’s 26 January 2016 plenary session, the draft report on “Inhabitants of frontier regions of Azerbaijan are deliberately deprived of water” by MP Milica Markovic from Bosnia and Herzegovina, was adopted with 98 to 71 votes and 40 abstentions. Though Armenian delegation and pro-Armenian MPs tabled 21 amendments to Markovic’s draft report, it was approved with only a few amendments.

Mobilizing all its efforts, Armenia was also trying to block this report and hoped that PACE members would also vote down Markovic’s draft report as they did with the one by Robert Walter. However, on that day, after a short period, PACE passed Resolution 2085 (2016) on the basis of the draft report by Markovic “Inhabitants of frontier regions of Azerbaijan are deliberately deprived of water”. The report envisaged very significant provisions, which, inter alia, stated:

-Armenia has occupied and retained Nagorno-Karabakh and other territories of Azerbaijan under occupation;

-demanded the immediate withdrawal of Armenia’s armed forces from the occupied areas;

-stressed that the lack of repairs and maintenance at the Sarsang water reservoir for over 20 years in the occupied Azerbaijani territories by Armenia may lead to a catastrophe with a considerable amount of human losses and possible fresh humanitarian crises;

-condemned the use of water as a weapon by the aggressor state, the creation of “deliberate artificial environmental crises” and considered as “environmental terror”;

-demanded that the Armenian government to stop using the water resources as a political leverage or pressure tool in favor of one of the conflicting sides.

Thus, by adopting Resolution 2085 (2016), PACE clearly declared the occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh and other neighboring territories of Azerbaijan, namely by the Armenian state. At the same time, PACE held Armenia responsible unambiguously for a possible humanitarian and environmental disaster at the Sarsang water reservoir.

Furthermore, it should be noted that Resolution 2085 (2016) “Inhabitants of frontier regions of Azerbaijan are deliberately deprived of water” is the first official document adopted by the international organization on Azerbaijan’s Sarsang water reservoir under occupation. As a whole, this document once again proves the essence of Armenians occupying policy, informs international community of the situation unfolding in the region as a result of the Armenian occupation, consolidates Azerbaijan’s position in the negotiations and enhances opportunities for increasing political pressure on Armenia by international community.

Armenia was making all efforts to prevent the preparations for the reports and bring them up for discussions at the committees. For this purpose, Armenian officials at the level of the president and foreign minister called presidents and prime ministers of PACE member states.

Diplomats of the Armenian embassies to European countries met with parliamentarians of PACE member states to convince and bribe them against backing the reports. Under the pretext that the rapporteurs had not paid fact-finding trips to the Nagorno-Karabakh and the Sarsang water reservoir, they were demanding the removal of the reports from the agenda.

The report on “Escalation of violence in Nagorno-Karabakh and other occupied territories of Azerbaijan”, prepared by rapporteur Robert Walter, was discussed at the meeting of the Committee on Political Affairs and Democracy on 4 November 2015 in Paris. The report reflected the occupation by Armenia of Azerbaijan’s Nagorno-Karabakh and other territories and retaining of these territories under occupation for over 25 years.

This document also made reference to UN Security Council Resolutions, demanding the liberation of Azerbaijani territories from occupation. At the same time, the document noted that the judgement of the European Court of Human Rights on “Chiragov and others v. Armenia” dated from 16 June 2015 proved that Armenia, in fact, controls Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding regions. The document also noted that Dilqam Asgarov and Sahbaz Quliyev, who were taken hostage by Armenia, had been illegally convicted by a “court” of the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh region.

We should note that the judgement of the European Court of Human Rights with regard to the case of “Chiragov and others v.Armenia” from 16 June 2015 underlines that the Armenian government actually controls Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding regions. The international-legal responsibility of Armenia for human rights violations in Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding regions was reflected in the decision.

The court stated that “Armenia, through its military presence and the provision of pieces of military hardware, equipment and expertize, has been closely involved in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict from the outset. Armenia’s military support has been decisive for control over the territories in question”.

At the same time, three amendments were tabled to Robert Walter’s report on “Escalation of violence in Nagorno-Karabakh and other occupied territories of Azerbaijan”.

One of the amendments envisaged replacement of the item four in the report, reading “… the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has not been solved yet” by “… the occupied territories of Azerbaijan has not been released from occupation yet”.

The second amendment with regard to the unconditional release of Dilqam Asgarov and Sahbaz Quliyev contained the wording “… calls the occupying country Armenia to immediately secure their release”.

Finally, the third amendment suggested replacing the expression of “to be sorry” by “resolutely condemns” the refusal of the Armenian government to cooperate with the rapporteur.

It was clear from the outset that the Armenian delegation and pro-Armenian forces would resort to various provocative ways and methods to prevent the adoption of the abovementioned report at the Committee meetings. The refusal of Armenia to cooperate with the rapporteur proved it.

Moreover, ahead of the 4 November meeting of the Committee in Paris, the Armenian media carried reports, alleging that the report contained numerous anti-Armenian provisions and it was completely pro-Azerbaijan. On the other hand, the head of the Armenian delegation, Naghdalyan, and members of the delegation Rustamyan and Karapetyan were participating in the discussions. They were trying to prevent the adoption of the report by insistently displaying hypocrisy.

Denying the reality completely, they impudently and aggressively proposed that the draft resolution be canceled and be never brought to the agenda. This ridiculous proposal of Armenia was put to vote and rejected with 14 to 24 votes.

Thus, the Committee on Political Affairs and Democracy made a decision to accept the report despite all hypocrisy and provocation of the members of the Armenian delegation. It should be noted that the three amendments tabled by us were accepted. Other three amendments, contradicting Azerbaijan’s interests, were not adopted. The Assembly’s plenary session was the last phase for the final adoption of the report and we were pretty aware that we would be facing a bitter struggle.

We should underline that Armenia started to feel seriously anxious after the adoption of the report on “Escalation of violence in Nagorno-Karabakh and other occupied territories of Azerbaijan” by British MP Robert Walter at the 4 November meeting of the PACE Committee on Political Affairs and Democracy. This was panic rather than concern.

Things came to such a pitch that the Armenian parliament held discussions on this matter and demanded that the delegation of Armenia to explain the reason for the failure to prevent the adoption of the reports. What is intriguing is that at the end of the discussions, Parliamentary Speaker Galust Sahakyan came against looking for a culprit for this setback and urged for mobilization of all efforts to prevent the draft resolution at PACE’s January session in 2016.

I should note that the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs issued a press release on 22 January 2016 in Vienna:

“The OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs – Igor Popov of the Russian Federation, James Warlick of the United States of America, and Pierre Andrieu of France – welcome efforts to find a negotiated settlement to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and are prepared to work cooperatively with those committed to a peaceful settlement. We understand that the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) may consider resolutions on the conflict in the near future and remind PACE, and other regional and international organizations, that the OSCE Minsk Group remains the only accepted format for the negotiations. We appreciate the interest paid by PACE members, but urge that steps not be taken which could undermine the Minsk Group’s mandate from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe or complicate the ongoing negotiations.”

So, it was obvious that Armenia would use all available means in order to prevent the adoption of the report on “Inhabitants of frontier regions of Azerbaijan are deliberately deprived of water” at the meeting of the Committee on Social Affairs.

We were well aware of a provocative proposal made at the meeting of the Committee on Political Affairs and Democracy, calling for the permanent removal of the report on the occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh and other territories of Azerbaijan from the agenda, as well as the rejection of this proposal as a result of voting. It was expected that the identical suggestion would be put forward at the meeting of the Committee on Social Affairs.

Besides, it seemed real that the Secretariat run by Secretary General Wojciech Sawicki with proved anti-Azerbaijani position would make provocative “surprises”. It was also not ruled out that other anti-Azerbaijan forces sharing positions of the Armenian delegation would act in concert to exert pressure on MP Milica Markovic from Bosnia and Herzegovina to withdraw her report.

I should note that the pressure brought to bear on rapporteur Robert Walter by pro-Armenian circles for the report on Nagorno-Karabakh and other occupied territories of Azerbaijan did not bring to fruition. In our opinion, what played a crucial role to this end was the fact that Robert Walter is a well-known European politician with vast experience, representing the United Kingdom – one of the leading world powers. However, we were aware of the fact that Markovic is a native of newly-independent Bosnia and Herzegovina, a small state which gained its independence at the end of the 20th century. Despite the concerns, we hoped for Markovic to demonstrate unbiased and principled position in the discussions.

At the same time, we should underline that Armenians in panic of a defeat after the adoption of the resolution on the occupation of our territories at the PACE Committee on the Political Affairs were in deep trouble now over the possibility of the passage of the draft resolution on the Sarsang water reservoir at the Committee on Social Affairs on 23 November 2015. Through lies, slander and mudslinging, they began to realize their hypocrisies. In addition to all these, they were exerting pressure on the rapporteur as well as on the state she represents by all possible means.

On 20 November 2015, Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandyan in an extensive interview said that the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs were against shifting the Nagorno-Karabakh problem from this framework to another international platform, claiming that the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs believed that the resolution and attempts to change the format of the talks could disrupt the negotiations process.

However, U.S. co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group James Warlick in an interview with a local news agency said that they hailed this resolution of PACE and were ready for consultations with the PACE rapporteurs over the settlement of this problem. However, in their 12 November 2015 opinion on PACE’s draft resolutions, the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs said: “The Minsk Group format is accepted by the parties and has the full confidence of all OSCE participating states. Considering the sensitivity of the negotiations, attempts to change the format or create parallel mechanisms can disrupt the negotiation process and impede progress towards a settlement.”

The co-chairs also underlined that they are prepared to cooperate with all international organizations, which demonstrate an interest in finding a just and sustainable settlement to the conflict. Nevertheless, neither Armenia, nor the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs would like to acknowledge that the consideration of this issue at PACE was not aimed at changing the existing format.

According to the claim of Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandyan, rapporteur Robert Walter allegedly addressed in writing to the leadership of the so-called “NKR” on 22 September for paying a visit to Nagorno-Karabakh, and allegedly the self-styled “NKR” intended to cooperate on the issue of the Sarsang water reservoir and that they are ready to receive the PACE rapporteur.

As is clear, with reference to the separatist regime, the occupying country wanted to gain political dividend and to legitimize the occupation. Of course, it would be totally absurd for the rapporteur to send a letter to a body unrecognized by PACE or to cooperate with this self-styled entity. The final resolution passed by PACE unequivocally called Armenia as an aggressor state and condemned it for the lack of cooperation.

These facts once again prove that Nalbandyan did not even hesitate to avoid lying and openly deceiving the international community for the sake of overcoming the defeat they had found themselves in. Unable to reconcile with their defeat, Armenians were also looking for a scapegoat.

However, despite attempts and hypocrisy of Armenia, the 23 November Paris meeting of the Committee on Social Affairs put forward for discussions the report on “Inhabitants of frontier regions of Azerbaijan are deliberately deprived of water” by Milica Markovic. The discussions were tense. During the discussions, a member of the Armenian delegation proposed to postpone the report until PACE’s June session. This proposal was put to vote and rejected by 16 to 9 votes.

Moreover, none of the amendments to the draft resolution of the report tabled by anti-Azerbaijani forces were approved. One of the noteworthy points is that in one of the amendments it was suggested to merge this report with the report on the “Escalation of tension in Nagorno-Karabakh and other occupied territories of Azerbaijan” prepared by Robert Walter and approved by the Committee on Political Affairs and Democracy on 4 November.

It was obvious that those who tabled this amendment hereby intended to exclude from the agenda not only the report on the Sarsang reservoir, but also the report on the occupied territories. However, this malicious intention was not realized and this nonsensical amendment was not approved. In the end, the report “Inhabitants of frontier regions of Azerbaijan are deliberately deprived of water” by MP Milica Markovic from Bosnia and Herzegovina was put to vote and adopted with 98 to 71 votes and 40 abstentions.

According to PACE’s Rules of Procedure, the resolutions adopted in the Committees shall be discussed and approved by plenary sessions of the Assembly by voting. Therefore, in accordance with PACE’s Rules of Procedure, PACE meetings had to approve the resolutions “Escalation of tension in Nagorno-Karabakh and other occupied territories of Azerbaijan” and “Inhabitants of frontier regions of Azerbaijan are deliberately deprived of water”, respectively adopted in the Committee on Political Affairs and Democracy and the Committee on the Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development. As expected, at the meeting of the PACE Bureau on 26 November 2015 in Sofia, a decision was taken to open up discussions of the abovementioned reports at PACE’s 2016 January session for approval. Thus, the final and the most important stage of the struggle around the reports on the occupation of Azerbaijani territories by Robert Walter and the Sarsang reservoir by Milica Markovic respectively was becoming real at the Assembly meeting, slated for 26 January 2016.

It is critical to underscore that the next confrontations around the occupation of Azerbaijani territories by Armenia occurred about the first item of the draft report “The functioning of democratic institutions in Azerbaijan” prepared by the co-rapporteurs of the Monitoring Committee, Pedro Agramunt, and Tadeusz Iwinski, at the June session in late May early June 2015.

The first item of the draft report underlined that “the Assembly is fully aware of the occupation by Armenia of Nagorno-Karabakh and seven other districts of Azerbaijan that dominates most of Azerbaijan’s foreign policy agenda”.

However, the Armenian lobby and the anti-Azerbaijani forces could not accept the recognition of Armenia as an aggressor country. Therefore, the Armenian lobby and the anti-Azerbaijani forces have launched wide-ranging attacks against Azerbaijan after the report was published on the website of PACE on 21 May 2015.

I should also underline that the leading power centers have immediately intensified their anti-Azerbaijani campaign after we managed to have retained the expression of “Nagorno-Karabakh and seven other districts of Azerbaijan occupied by Armenia” in the first item of the draft resolution at the 28 May 2015 meeting of the Monitoring Committee. They instructed their satellites in different intergovernmental organizations and NGOs to simultaneously launch an anti-Azerbaijani campaign from different directions.

Numerous NGOs, as well as the Human Rights House Foundation, incorporating 90 human rights organizations from 18 human rights houses from 13 countries from Eastern and Western Europe, the Caucasus and Balkans, started waging systematic attacks against Azerbaijan under the instruction of various power centers.

These organizations acted openly against the item on the occupation in the report related to the functioning of democratic institutions. In their speeches, contrary to the supremacy of the law, they were interfering in the court decision and the internal affairs of the sovereign country, suggesting amendments on human rights replicating one another. This revealed that they were mobilized for exerting pressure on Azerbaijan. This prejudiced attitude manifested itself openly in biased amendments and addenda to the draft resolution.

As was expected, the discussions around the first item envisaging the expression of “Nagorno-Karabakh and other occupied territories of Azerbaijan” were again tense at the meeting of the Assembly on 23 June 2015. The discussions that could be assessed as a “war of positions” displayed the real face of the anti-Azerbaijani forces represented at PACE, and PACE itself as a political institution. None of the PACE member countries mentioned Armenia’s occupation in the discussions. Even anti-Azerbaijan forces, especially President Anne Brasseur and Secretary General Wojciech Sawicki made no bones about exerting pressure on the co-rapporteurs, Pedro Agramunt and Tadeusz Iwinski.

The Assembly replaced the expression of “the occupation by Armenia of Nagorno-Karabakh and seven other districts of Azerbaijan,” by an expression “the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict” in permanent use. The pro-Armenian and anti-Azerbaijani forces mobilized all their resources to achieve this change and joined their efforts against Azerbaijan and co-rapporteurs’ fair demands.

The key aim of those who put forward this proposal was to change the first item of the report and to hush up the occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh and seven other districts of Azerbaijan. They proposed four amendments to weaken this item. The reason for similar amendments was to achieve their goal if one of them failed to get approved.

Though PACE members received special instructions from their countries, they rejected three of these amendments and only the last amendment was accepted with the majority of 10 votes. Under various pretexts, PACE President Anne Brasseur put the same item to voting for several times in order to achieve her insidious goals. Even after the voting, parliamentarians in the hall did not conceal their doubts about the possibility of approval of the amendment with the majority of 10 votes.

I should note that according to the procedural rules of PACE, during discussions co-rapporteur can express their opinions on amendments. However, violating roughly PACE’s rules of procedures during the discussions, PACE President Anne Brasseur did not let the co-rapporteurs to express their opinions till the end of the discussions around the first item of the report.

When the rapporteurs protested at her, Anne Brasseur told them “you don’t have such a right” and Secretary General Wojciech Sawicki confirmed it. Only after PACE member from Spain Agustin Condi gave an in-depth explanation on requirements of the procedural rules, Anne Brasseur let the co-rapporteurs speak. However, it was almost late; Sawicki’s mission to defend Armenia was over.

These discussions once again proved that the intention behind wide-ranging pressure of PACE against Azerbaijan is to conceal the occupation of our territories by Armenia and to achieve that the occupation of Azerbaijani lands be forgotten. It clearly indicated that the key struggle would be during the discussions around the reports on “Escalation of violence in Nagorno-Karabakh and other occupied territories of Azerbaijan” and on “Inhabitants of frontier regions of Azerbaijan are deliberately deprived of water”.

Apart from the OSCE Minsk Group framework, Armenia constantly opposes the transfer of the Nagorno-Karabakh problem to the international platform. On the basis of flimsy excuses and pretexts that this would hinder the Karabakh negotiations process, they were attempting to cover up their occupying policy and to prevent the conduct of any discussions at the PACE on the occupied Sarsang water reservoir and the adoption of a resolution to this end.

Armenia rejected cooperation with Robert Walter, the rapporteur of the report, titled “Escalation of violence in Nagorno-Karabakh and other occupied territories of Azerbaijan”; and Milica Markovic, the rapporteur of the report, titled “Inhabitants of frontier regions of Azerbaijan are deliberately deprived of water”.

Moreover, both Armenia and various Europe-based pro-Armenian forces were resorting to provocations to prevent preparations for the reports.

Thus, a similar provocation was committed by the PACE Secretariat headed by Sawicki. So, the title of the report was deliberately distorted in the report published on the website of PACE on 6 March 2015 with regard to the fact-finding visit of Robert Walter to Azerbaijan. To be on the safe side, I consider it necessary to submit the full text of the report:

“The PACE rapporteur is going to pay a fact-finding visit to Azerbaijan: The rapporteur of the Committee on Political Affairs of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Robert Walter (United Kingdom, EC), is going to pay a fact-finding visit to Azerbaijan on 12-13 March 2015 in the context of a report to be prepared with regard to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Mr. Walter will hold meetings with refugees and IDPs, as well as the civil society representatives engaged in this issue, including international community.”

Though, a title of any report is always published in full and correctly in the news reports of PACE, “it was forgotten” this time. Moreover, it is a strange coincidence that the title “On the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict…” preferred by the PACE Secretary General, was again mentioned twice.

We should remind that namely the title “On the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict” was repeatedly and overwhelmingly rejected after discussions with Secretary General Wojciech Sawicki in presence, and the title “The escalation of violence in Nagorno-Karabakh and other occupied territories of Azerbaijan” was supported. This title was endorsed at a plenary session of the Assembly and an attempt by Armenians to change the title at the Committee on Political Affairs was rejected by vast majority.

We should underline that as the editor-in-chief of the news section of PACE’s official website, the Secretary General has exclusive powers on defining how the public should be presented information on PACE. However, what is an unacceptable is that abusing his powers, the Secretary General – in his capacity as a “neutral” person, expressed his personal political view, and came against official and decisive decisions approved after lengthy discussions at the Bureau, Assembly and at the Committee.

Though Sawicki claimed that he was not the author of the note, it is an open secret at PACE that the Secretary General scrutinizes and endorses all information for the website. No doubt that as the head of the administration, the final responsibility on this issue fell on the Secretary General.

For several times, rapporteur Robert Walter requested the Armenian government for permission to pay a fact-finding visit to the regions under occupation to assess the situation on the scene. However, Armenia did not provide conditions for Robert Walter to visit the region under occupation and rejected collaboration with him. At the same time, we should underline that in his capacity as the rapporteur, Robert Walter twice paid a fact-finding visit to Azerbaijan, held high-level meetings, visited front line districts and got familiar with the situation in the front line regions.

In September 2015, Robert Walter informed the Committee on Political Affairs and Democracy that despite his persistent appeals, the Armenian government did not allow him to pay a fact-finding trip to the occupied territories as part of his mandate and actually rejected to collaborate with him.

At the same time, he announced that he would present a report at the October session of PACE despite the developments around the issue. Finally, Robert Walter’s report on “Escalation of the violence in Nagorno-Karabakh and other occupied territories of Azerbaijan” was included in the agenda of the 4 November meeting of the Committee on Political Affairs and Democracy.

We should underline that various attempts were made to also influence Ms. Milica Markovic, rapporteur of the report on “Inhabitants of frontier regions of Azerbaijan are deliberately deprived of water”. One of these attempts occurred at the Secretariat of Committee on Social Affairs. In the letter sent to Markovic, the Secretariat of the Committee stressed that “the Azerbaijani authorities were mainly responsible for the water issue”.

The letter questioned: “Does this government use own people as a tool to put pressure on a neighboring country?”

Obviously, the secretariat is trying to direct the rapporteur by asking such a question and pointed to the relevance of the report’s anti-Azerbaijani nature. To recap, Aiste Ramanauskaite of the Secretariat says that she has drawn up a draft report and needs to refer it up to “her hierarchy for a reaction before sending it to Markovic”.

From the context of the letter, it certainly becomes clear that not impartiality but the position of the Secretariat should be reflected in the report. These all revealed the systematic anti-Azerbaijani nature of the campaign at PACE. And from this point of view, it was beyond any doubts that the draft report drawn up by the Secretariat was of anti-Azerbaijani nature.

We should note that after the issue of the Sarsang water reservoir under occupation was put on the PACE agenda, the American co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group, James Warlick, posted a photo of the Sarsang water reservoir in his social network account with the following post: “This is #Sarsang reservoir. It would be a positive step if the sides could jointly manage water resources.”

The message of the post by the American co-chair was quite clear. Instead of urging the aggressor to release the occupied territories unconditionally and in accordance with international legal norms, he urged the invader and the victim of the aggression – Azerbaijan – to jointly use the Sarsang water reservoir.

The message of the U.S. co-chairman of the OSCE Minsk Group about the joint use of the Sarsang water reservoir was not accidental. I believe that War lick’s thoughts serve specific purposes and aimed at purposefully influencing the investigation of the rapporteur on the Sarsang water reservoir. As a diplomat, James Warlick knows quite well that in accordance with the imperative principles of the international laws, the occupation of one state’s territory by another state is illegal and any activity of the invader in the occupied territory is illegal. It means the U.S. co-chair knows well that any activity by Armenia and the separatist regime established by it in the territory of Azerbaijan under occupation was illegitimate.

Following the post of U.S. co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group James Warlick, “Artur Aghabekyan, the so-called deputy prime minister of the unrecognized separatist regime, called ‘the republic of Nagorno-Karabakh/ established by the occupying state of Armenia on Azerbaijani lands, said in August 2013: “The water resources of the Sarsang water reservoir are more than our needs. Both the Armenian and the Azerbaijani sides would benefit if the water canals built during Soviet Union were used properly.”

We should note that Artur Aghabekyan was a former deputy defense minister of Armenia and he moved from Yerevan to Xankandi a year ago. Apparently, “the high-ranking official” ofthe separatist regime, created by the aggressor country of Armenia, did not utter a word on the liberation of the occupied lands. On the contrary, he tried to legitimize their occupying policies and prevent any discussions at PACE on the Sarsang water reservoir. I wonder whether it is coincidence or originated from a single source that proposals of the U.S. co-chair and the “official” of the separatist regime overlapped?

I believe that such a coincidence cannot be accidental, and the point here was to kill two birds with one stone, that is, to achieve dual goals – first, to defend Armenia, claiming that Azerbaijan is not interested in cooperation; second, get protected from international sanctions. Undoubtedly, both Mr. Warlick and other patrons of Armenia know well that Azerbaijan will never cooperate with the occupying country, as well as with the separatist regime, established by it, as long as its territories remain under occupation.

In the case under consideration, the enemy and centers supporting it will have chances to claim that Armenia is ready for constructive cooperation to end the occupation. Thus, they will try to demonstrate to the international community that Armenia is ready for cooperation, Armenians are peace-lovers, but Azerbaijan does not cooperate and does not want the restoration of peace and tranquility in the region.

So, the proposal of U.S co-chair James Warlick, and Artur Aghabekyan, “official” of the separatist regime, on the one hand, was designed at undermining Azerbaijan’s international image, to form an opinion internationally that Azerbaijan is a non-constructive state. On the other hand, it was designed to send a message to international organizations that aggressive Armenia enjoys immunity, and the application of sanctions against it would be ill-considered. So, such a proposal could not be considered accidental and was directed against Azerbaijan.

The PACE Secretariat asked Armenia to create conditions for rapporteur Ms. Milica Markovic to pay a fact-finding visit to the occupied territories, where the Sarsang water reservoir is located, to assess the situation on the spot. But the Armenian government rejected to create conditions for the rapporteur to visit the Sarsang water reservoir. Armenia’s response to the PACE Secretariat was frivolous and ridiculous.

Thus, aggressor Armenia claimed that this issue had nothing to do with it and hypocritically advised it to address the self-proclaimed “Nagorno-Karabakh republic” unrecognized by any state and international organizations. With this provocative response, on the one hand, Armenia’s ridiculous and burning desire was to stimulate the PACE rapporteur to cooperation with the self-styled “Nagorno-Karabakh republic”, on the other hand, to announce to the whole world its crazy fancies about the alleged recognition of the “NKR” by PACE and cooperation with it, which did not come true.

By taking this step, Armenia has actually refused to cooperate  with the PACE rapporteur and failed to fulfill its international obligations. Despite Armenia’s destructive position, Milica Markovic twice paid fact-finding visits to Azerbaijan. In order to assess the situation objectively, these missions were realized in winter (14-19 December 2014) and in summer (24-28 August 2015).

During the fact-finding missions, the rapporteur was accompanied by technical expert Dr. Lydia Vamvakeridou-Lyroudia and secretary of the Committee on Social Affairs Aiste Ramanauskaite. During the visits, they held meetings with Azerbaijani officials, travelled to frontier regions and chatted to locals who sustained damages due to the occupation of the Sarsang water reservoir, found out the real situation on the scene and drew up a report and handed it over to the Committee on Social Affairs. The discussion of this report was included in the agenda of the meeting of the Committee on Social Affairs held on 23 November 2015.

On 10 April 2014, PACE passed Resolution 1990 (2014) envisaging sanctions against the Russian delegation over the events unfolding in Ukraine. The major reason for imposing sanctions on the Russian delegation was the occupation of Crimea. The approval of this draft resolution raised questions. Why are the sanctions imposed on the Russian delegation, whereas, no sanctions are applied against the delegation from Armenia – the country which has occupied 20% of Azerbaijani territories and has been retaining it under control for many years?

Therefore, in June 2014,1 tabled a motion, calling for applying sanctions against the Armenian delegation for the occupation of Azerbaijani territories and this motion was published on PACE’s website on 18 June 2014. My motion made references to PACE Resolution 1990 (2014) dated 10 April 2014 envisaging sanctions against the Russian delegation over the developments in Ukraine. Proceeding from the same standard, I also called for the imposition of similar sanctions against the Armenian delegation until the end of the occupation of the Azerbaijani territories.

The motion was signed by 58 parliamentarians from 14 PACE member states and was emailed to the PACE Secretariat on 7 June. On 10 June, the Secretariat confirmed the receipt of the document. In accordance with the rules of procedure, the motion with the original signatures of 58 MPs was submitted to the Secretariat on 16 June. At the same time, I sent a letter to the Bureau members, hoping sincerely that the PACE leadership and the Secretariat would be unbiased towards Azerbaijan as a whole, and in particular, with regard to the motion in question.

PACE Secretary General Wojciech Sawicki has always distinguished himself with sharp anti-Azerbaijani position on issues put forward for discussions at PACE and showed strong bias and outright discrimination towards Azerbaijan. I was absolutely sure that he would remain loyal to his anti-Azerbaijani position this time again about the motion, calling for sanctions against Armenia, and by all means, he would try to prevent the motion from being passed. Indeed, at the 22 June meeting of the Presidential Committee, PACE Secretary General Wojciech Sawicki raised a procedural protest against the motion at the last minute. Commenting on Rule 9, he said that the issue of themandate should be referred to in the motion calling for sanctions.

However, we should note that as a whole, in case of a procedural protest, the Secretariat at a meeting quotes a relevant article verbatim. But an article (or a sub-item) forbidding a call for the imposition of sanctions by submitting a motion cannot be cited, simply for the reason that no rules forbid it. No article of the rules indicates the necessity of questioning the issue of a mandate for discussing or applying sanctions.

In addition to this, in my draft resolution, the issue of casting a doubt on the mandate of the Armenian delegation was not  of interest. Actually, my point was that the Assembly to thoroughly discuss the issue of the occupied territories of Azerbaijan after an authoritative committee draws up a proper report with arguments of the Armenian delegation. I did not call for a hasty procedural report casting a doubt on the mandate of the Armenian delegation.

Thus, the occupation of Azerbaijani territories by Armenia is above all a real fact. According to the common principle, the Assembly is independent in making decisions, so, it can apply sanctions on the basis of a real fact. Actually, its opposite would contradict all the principles of parliamentary democracy, as well as common sense.

In addition to this, the motion was submitted, published andplaced on the PACE website, which proves the relevance of the document. This motion was an official document of the Parliamentary Assembly. Rule 24.3 stipulates that “a motion relevant to the rules will be shortly published and distributed.”

On top of this, as a rule, even if a motion is irrelevant, it is usually sent back to an author along with notes and proposals for correction. This is a single and positive experience practiced together with the leadership of the Secretariat. However, my motion was not sent back to me as the author for notes and corrections, on the contrary, it was published without any notes. Thus, PACE Secretary General Wojciech Sawicki once again displayed blatant hypocrisy.

As if it was not enough, at the Presidential Committee meeting, Sawicki proposed to send the draft resolution to the Monitoring Committee to merge it with a monitoring report on Armenia in the pipeline. Thus, the Secretariat came up with an official reference proposal at the Presidential Committee meeting.

However, when it emerged that the Presidential Committee does not support this reference but another one, a certain procedural obstacle popped up all of a sudden: the formulation of the motion is already irrelevant! However, there emerged a logical question: Why the wording of this document relevant for a reference proposal is irrelevant for another one? The answer to this question remained open.

Consequently, the Secretariat agreed to send the motion to the Committee on Political Affairs and Democracy, provided that I rewrite this motion and collect signatures again. It was clear that such a decision was made because of the biased position of the Secretariat.

On the same day, Wojciech Sawicki invited me to a meeting. At our meeting, first, he behaved in a friendly way and offered that it would be nice for me to call my motion back from the agenda, but once realizing that it would be impossible, he resorted to threats. In the end, the Committee said that it would direct the motion to the Committee on Political Affairs and Democracy for a report, if I submitted a new motion within a day. I had to immediately draw up a new motion and submit it to the Secretariat quickly with 28 new signatures I collected from my colleagues representing 16 member states.

The Secretariat in a permanent conflict with us was extremely surprised at this and had to accept the new motion. It was drawn up in accordance with the requirements the leadership put forward in the last minute. On Sunday, 22 June, a political consensus was achieved on the issue at the Presidential Committee. So, by submitting a new motion, I proved that I was determined for open and transparent discussions at PACE with regard to the occupied territories of Azerbaijan and for preparing a motion, as well as a report on this issue.

Certainly, Wojciech Sawicki’s excessive zeal to prevent the passage of the motion, calling for sanctions against the Armenian delegation at PACE could not but be fallen on deaf ears. Although he used every trick in the book to prevent this motion during the summer session, he could not accomplish it. Undoubtedly, it was clear that Sawicki would take new steps to guarantee the immunity of the Armenian delegation, using efficiently the period till September for making a crucial decision.

Indeed, being annoyed, Wojciech Sawicki again resorted to new provocations. A new motion was drawn up under his supervision and with strong support of Armenians to openly bewilder parliamentarians. So, a third formal motion, titled “The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict”, serving interests of Armenia without stipulating sanctions against Armenia and the occupation of Azerbaijani territories by Armenia was drawn up and submitted to the Secretariat.

The Secretariat managed to misled Greek MP Bakoyannis and have the motion “The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict” signed by her. The motion was aimed at preventing any discussion on the occupied territories of Azerbaijan. And though, at first sight, it seemed acceptable for European MPs, for sure, they were completely confused. The discussions around these three motions at the 26 June meeting of the Presidential Committee were extremely tense and more aggressive than ever. Leaders were insulting one another directly and personally, provoking chaos and fueling the flames.

Finally, a consensus was achieved with three to two votes to refer the first motion on sanctions to the Monitoring Committee only for information, and to postpone the other two motions on the occupied territories, as well as on the “The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict” till September.

The issue on the motions was again in the agenda of the Bureau meeting planned for Friday, 27 June 2014. PACE President Anne Brasseur commented on the summary opinion of the Presidential Committee pertaining to this issue. During the discussions, the Chairman of the Monitoring Committee was insisting on referring the motion to his Committee even though it was for information.

The chairman of the Bureau proposed to come to an agreement and postpone the other two motions. However, the EPP leader made a speech, calling to put to vote the issue and vote for two other motions on the same day. The sharp responses of Socialists and Communists and their speeches confused the parliamentarians. Thus, the voting was suspended and a new proposal to postpone the motions till September was immediately tabled.

So, the Bureau meeting ended in a complete chaos and a decision was postponed till the September 2014 Bureau meeting in Paris. The 2 September 2014 Paris meeting was to take a crucial decision after numerous hypocrisies, obstacles and provocations.

Intriguingly, several days after the PACE session was over, Arpine Hovhannisyan of the Armenian delegation and others submitted a draft resolution, titled “Harassment of investigative journalists in Azerbaijan reporting on corruption”. Of course, the draft resolution submitted in haste immediately after the summer session was illogical, biased and triggered a number of questions:

1.   What was behind such a draft resolution, presented immediately after the discussion of a draft resolution, calling for sanctions against the Armenian delegation in summer session of PACE?

2.   Who are the authors of this idea and real organizers of this draft resolution?

3.   What is the key objective of this draft resolution?

I should underline that tabling a draft resolution soon after PACE’s summer session, serving the interest of Armenia, was expected. It is beyond any tiny shade of a doubt that this idea was originated with Wojciech Sawicki and his colleagues, notorious for their anti-Azerbaijani position, despite claims that it was tabled by Arpine Hovhannisyan of the Armenian delegation and other members of the Assembly

Thus, at our face-to-face meeting on the fringes of PACE’s summer session, Wojciech Sawicki asked me an interesting question: “Why do the international organizations, including PACE, sympathize with Moldova, Georgia and other nations about their occupied territories, though, they don’t have an identical attitude towards Azerbaijan, even some of them hate it?”

Asking such a question, Wojciech Sawicki admitted that there are discrimination and even hatred against Azerbaijan among some PACE members, and such an approach is not only among individual members of PACE, but also among its leadership. Perhaps, with this question, he alluded that you are Muslims and you should realize it.

In response, I told him that such an approach was likely associated with the fact that Azerbaijan is a Muslim nation. Wojciech Sawicki remained tight-lipped about my response. By remaining silent over my reply, Wojciech Sawicki seemed to agree about the deep-rooted religiously-motivated anti-Azerbaijani attitude at PACE.

Realizing that I am determined on my position, he did not even hesitate to blackmail me. At a bureau meeting, he alleged that I had proposed him that I would back his re-election bid as the secretary general of the organization in the next election.

I understand very well that Wojciech Sawicki will never admit that he had asked me that question or slandered my name at a Bureau meeting. Therefore, I advise him to look through the verbatim records of our face-to-face meeting and the Bureau meeting to verify the credibility of this information.

What was the key objective of the anti-Azerbaijani motion, presented by Arpine Hovhannisyan of the Armenian delegation, and other members, engineered by Wojciech Sawicki after the summer session? It is obvious that the key objective of this motion was to succeed in passing into oblivion the occupation of Azerbaijani lands, and at the same time, to cover up the occupying policy of Armenia.

Given this, the Armenian delegation was unambiguously protected from PACE sanctions and their immunity was guaranteed, and the passage of the motion “The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict”, supervised and submitted by Wojciech Sawicki, was secured.

Thus, developments unfolding around the motion, calling for the application of sanctions against the Armenian delegation for the ongoing occupation of Azerbaijani territories, once again, indicated that PACE Secretary General Wojciech Sawicki and some likeminded PACE leaders tried to distract the attention of the Azerbaijani delegation from the key issue, to relegate to oblivion the occupation of the lands, to protect the Armenian delegation from sanctions, as a whole, to secure the immunity of the Armenian delegation under various pretexts.

We should note that the debates of PACE members boiled down to a consensus about the need for drawing up a report on the issue. However, the key issue of concern was about titling this report. Wojciech Sawicki and his secretariat wanted the report called “The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict”, but we were struggling for inclusion of the expression “Nagorno-Karabakh and other occupied territories of Azerbaijan” in the title of the report.

Simultaneously, it was obvious that the struggle was not over and its new and crucial phase lies ahead. This was proved by Wojciech Sawicki’s comment on a motion presented at 27 June 2014 Bureau meeting. Thus, Sawicki described the motion an outright provocation against Armenia, and the title of the proposed report as completely unacceptable.

Discussions were held around the motion at the Bureau meeting in Paris on 2 September 2014, where one of the key speeches was made by Greek MP Bakoyannis. As I have already mentioned, Bakoyannis signed the “The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict” motion at Sawicki’s suggestion without getting acquainted with the text.

However, after thorough familiarization with the motion, she understood that the motion was biased, of anti-Azerbaijani nature, and above all, it distorted the fact of occupation of Azerbaijani lands, and admitted that she had made a mistake by signing it.

Thus, speaking about her mistake, Bakoyannis confessed to making a mistake and drew attention to the fact that this motion did not take into account the occupation of seven surrounding districts, giving her support to the motion, titled “Escalation of violence in Nagorno-Karabakh and other occupied territories of Azerbaijan”.

In general, common sense and sound judgement overcame Sawicki’s endless maneuvers throughout the 2 September 2014 Bureau meeting. The motion was passed with 20 to 5 votes and was referred to the Committee on Political Affairs and Democracy for a report.

Nevertheless, Wojciech Sawicki warned that the decision should be approved by the Assembly, and the Committee may still question the motion. Certainly, although the Paris victory was historic, it became obvious that all the attacks will resume next month. So, it happened.

Annoyed by the 2 September 2014 decision of the Bureau, the Armenian authorities and pro-Armenian forces at this organization were trying to prevent it by all means. Even Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan sent a letter to the President of the EPP in the European Parliament Joseph Daul on 25 September 2014.

In his letter, Sargsyan said that the 2 September Bureau meeting recommended the Parliamentary Assembly to prepare an unacceptable report, called “The escalation of violence in Nagorno-Karabakh and other occupied territories of Azerbaijan”, and tasked sending it to the Committee on Political Affairs and Democracy. He reminded that the Bureau’s recommendation was expected to be approved at the 29 September plenary session of the Parliamentary Assembly.

Serzh Sargsyan stressed that the only internationally-accepted format for a peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is the OSCE Minsk Group, and in this context, the prospect of drafting such a resolution on the conflict of Nagorno-Karabakh at PACE made Armenia deeply anxious.

Stressing that the Armenian delegation would protest the Bureau’s decision, Sargsyan asked EPP Group to support Armenia. For his turn, appealing to Pedro Agramunt, president of the EPP Group at PACE, Joseph Daul, asked to inform him about the possibility of taking into consideration Sargsyan’s request. The 2 September decision of the Bureau on “Nagorno-Karabakh and other occupied territories of Azerbaijan” was tabled to discussion for approval at the 29 September 2014 plenary session of the Assembly.

Normally, this report is unanimously accepted along with a decision of the Bureau without voting. It should be noted that as a matter of fact, only a few parliamentarians used to participate in such meetings of the Assembly. However, the number of the parliamentarians at the 29 September plenary session was more than the number of the parliamentarians in similar meetings. It seemed surprising and strange.

It was obvious that the high turnout of parliamentarians at the plenary session turned out to be possible thanks to the support of the Secretariat, as well as the strong lobbyism of Armenian diplomats. Thus, over the recent weeks, they sent requests to all PACE members in all capitals of Europe for the purpose of convincing them to participate in the Assembly’s plenary session on 29 September and not to ratify the Bureau’s decision.

Addressing the Plenary session, all members of the Armenian delegation sharply criticized the decision of the Bureau. They were angrily claiming that the OSCE Minsk Group is in charge of this problem and no-one was allowed to discuss it. The Armenian parliamentarians were insisting that the Assembly has no power to discuss the issue. Naturally, it was impossible to earn respect of the Assembly members in this way and Armenia’s insistence were arguments that openly worked against themselves.

Some other parliamentarians reminded that the big majority of 20 to 5 vote in Paris was as an additional argument in Azerbaijan’s favor and in support of the report. After the two-hour debates, a voting was held and Armenia’s proposal, aimed at preventing my motion from being directed for drafting a report, was rejected with 74 to 41 votes and 13 abstentions.

The resistance of the Armenian parliamentarians and their supporters demonstrated that the final struggle would be in the Committee on Political Affairs and Democracy with the endorsement of the report’s title and the appointment of a rapporteur.

As a matter of fact, up to 70 MPs at the meeting of the Corn mittee on Political Affairs and Democracy on 1 October 2014 again encountered final efforts of the Armenian MPs, trying to prevent the start of drafting this report. However, the big majority of the parliamentarians came to the conclusion after the discussions at the Assembly that Armenians’ arguments were lame. Thus, only three MPs backed Armenia, whereas, dozens of MPs supported Azerbaijan’s position.

After the endorsement of a report, titled “Escalation of violence in Nagorno-Karabakh and other occupied territories of Azerbaijan”, Armenian parliamentarians abandoned the meeting, slamming down doors of the Committee hall. For them, this phase of the struggle was also lost, though it was continuing. Thus, the upcoming appointment of a rapporteur was the peak of this chapter of the struggle. The nomination of British MP Robert Walter for the position of a rapporteur was informally approved by the heads of the groups and he was supposed to be appointed. However, in the last minute, the head of the Socialists Group, Andreas Gross, nominated the former President of the Assembly, Mignon, as a rapporteur. Prior to this, Mignon nominated himself and then withdrew his candidacy for several times. From this point of view, it was surprising to nominate Mignon as a candidate again.

Speaking at a committee meeting, Mignon said that the members of the Armenian delegation rejected drafting of a report as they support dialogue between the two countries. And this once again demonstrated how close he was to Armenians and the Armenian Diaspora. Mignon suspended the activity of the sub-committee on Nagorno-Karabakh during his presidency. He knew pretty well that Armenians hadn’t participated in any meeting for “intensifying the dialogue”, because they avoided facing the crimes they committed in the occupied territories. On the other hand, as it was mentioned above, during his presidency, Mignon had twice vetoed the report on the Sarsang water reservoir.

Therefore, it was evident that he would be against this document. Obviously, a possible appointment of Mignon as a rapporteur was against Azerbaijan’s interests. That’s why, informing all committee members about Mignon’s biased position at a Committee meeting, and I called on them not to support his nomination. As a result of the voting, Walter won Mignon with 35 to 32 votes and got appointed a rapporteur.

Finally, after a long struggle, a decision was taken to task British MP Walter of the Committee on Political Affairs and Democracy to draft a report, titled “Escalation of violence in Nagorno-Karabakh and other occupied territories of Azerbaijan”.

The approval of the title of the report as “Escalation of violence in Nagorno-Karabakh and other occupied territories of Azerbaijan” was of paramount significance for Azerbaijan since this title revealed the true essence of the problem fully and unbiasedly.

In the meantime, in June 2014, Russian citizen of Azeri origin Dilqam Asgarov and Azerbaijani citizen Sahbaz Quliyev were taken hostage by the Armenian military forces while visiting their fatherland in Kalbacar District under the Armenian occupation. Another Azerbaijani citizen Hasan Hasanov from also occupied Cabrayil District in Karabakh was shot dead and later his body was handed over to Azerbaijan for burial.

Their fatherland is within the internationally-recognized borders of Azerbaijan and it is Azerbaijan’s territory. Azerbaijani citizens have the right to move freely within the boundaries of their fatherland and only Azerbaijani laws can restrict their movement. Thus, the civilians did not commit any crimes while visiting their fatherland that may contradict the laws.

However, on 19 December 2014, the so-called “court of the first instance” of the unrecognized separatist Nagorno-Karabakh regime, established in the occupied territories by Armenia, sentenced Dilqam Asgarov to life imprisonment and Sahbaz Quliyev to 22 years in jail.

As this “court” that passed this verdict has been established by the unrecognized separatist political entity and is neither recognized by a court of any state, nor corresponds to the basic principles that the court of general jurisdiction refers to. Thus, there are no control and general rules in this “court” belonging to the unrecognized separatist political institution, based on international contracts, guarantying the rule of law and human rights.

Therefore, during PACE’s winter session in 2015, I presented a motion on providing a fair juridical right to Dilqam Asgarov and Sahbaz Quliyev, taken hostage by the Armenian forces.

Alongside with a short comment of the abovementioned events, the motion indicated that “the Assembly calls all the sides responsible for illegal detention and trial of D. Asgarov and S. Quliyev, as well as the national and international organization which could contribute to the successful solution of this situation to guarantee the respect for the main human rights and legal laws and demand to provide the right to fair and open investigation for both individuals within reasonable time with independent and unbiased court legally established according to the Article 6 of the European Convention on the protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms”.

The motion, submitted to the Secretariat by me, was titled “Ensuring the right of Dilqam Asgarov and Sahbaz Quliyev to a fair trial” and was signed by 46 PACE members, representing 24 countries.

The Presidential Committee meeting on 5 March 2015 recommended that the motion be sent to Robert Walter, the rapporteur of the Committee on Political Affairs, for inclusion in the upcoming report on “Escalation of violence in Nagorno Karabakh and other occupied territories of Azerbaijan”.

Later the Bureau took a decision in accordance with the recommendations of Presidential Committee and the motion on “Ensuring the right of Dilqam Asgarov and Sahbaz Quliyev to a fair trial” was sent to rapporteur Robert Walter for merging with the report on “The escalation of violence in Nagorno-Karabakh and other occupied territories of Azerbaijan” in the pipeline. Thus, as a result of two-year unending struggle at PACE, thedecision taken for preparation of the report on “Inhabitants of frontier regions of Azerbaijan are deliberately deprived of water” at the Social Affairs Committee, and preparation of the report on “Escalation of violence in Nagorno-Karabakh and other occupied territories of Azerbaijan” at the Committee on Political Affairs again brought the occupation of Azerbaijan’s territories by Armenia to the fore on the international agenda.