Armenian foreign minister urges authorities, opposition to honour PACE
demands
Mediamax news agency
30 Apr 04
YEREVAN
Armenian Foreign Minister today expressed his confidence that the
authorities will seriously treat the recommendations, envisaged in the
28 April PACE [Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe]
resolution.
At the same time, Vardan Oskanyan said that part of the facts in the
resolution “do not correspond to the realities”, and the Armenian
authorities would react to them “in writing”, Mediamax news agency
reports. Moreover, the minister said that Yerevan was planning to draw
the Council of Europe leadership’s attention to a circumstance that
the resolution did not say that the Armenian opposition was airing
radical and anti-constitutional demands.
Vardan Oskanyan is happy about the fact that the PACE did not support
representatives of the Armenian opposition in the resolution, who
tried to include their demand on the conduct of a referendum on
confidence in the president of Armenia. The Armenian foreign minister
said that “no country or international organization support the demand
to conduct such a referendum in Armenia”.
Oskanyan described as important the fact that the PACE resolution did
not cast doubt on the outcome of the 2003 presidential elections in
Armenia, and called on the authorities and the opposition to start
dialogue without any pre-conditions.
“The opposition should finally realize that their demand on the
conduct of the referendum or the president’s resignation are hopeless
and could only reach an impasse,” the foreign minister said.
Oskanyan said that the Armenian authorities and opposition are equally
responsible for honouring of the requirements and recommendations
envisaged in the PACE resolution.
“If the problems mentioned in the resolution are not resolved until
September and our delegation is deprived of the mandate in the PACE,
not only the authorities but the whole of Armenia will suffer. And the
opposition will suffer and their representatives will lose the PACE
rostrum,” Oskanyan said.