HEAD OF ARMENIAN DELEGATION REACTS TO COUNCIL OF EUROPE DISCUSSIONS
Hayots Ashkarh, Yerevan
29 Apr 04
Yesterday, late in the evening PACE (Parliamentary Assembly of the
Council of Europe) finished discussions on the domestic political
situation in Armenia. The deputy chairman of the National Assembly,
head of the Armenian delegation, Tigran Torosyan, comments on this by
telephone.
(Hayots Ashkarh correspondent) Mr Torosyan, how did the discussions
finish? Was a negative decision adopted on Armenia?
(Tigran Torosyan) I think on the contrary. A very good decision for
Armenia was adopted that gave an answer to all the questions. It was
in connection with the so-called vote of confidence as well as the
presidential and parliamentary elections. In fact, it is the second
time that they have made more detailed assessments. So some people
should be able to understand, at least for the second time, what PACE
is saying.
(Correspondent) Can we say that all the information submitted by the
opposition was rejected by PACE? Who made a speech from the
opposition?
(Torosyan) Shavarsh Kocharyan (National Democratic Party, part of the
Justice bloc) made a speech against our proposals and, in his turn,
presented their proposals. As for the rejection of their information,
it is incorrect to put it this way, as the voting has finished,
decisions have been adopted and, of course, answers have been given to
all the questions.
(Correspondent) How did the PACE leadership respond to the information
presented in your report?
(Torosyan) PACE first of all makes assessments by voting. It was
obvious that the majority supported all our proposals.
The voting gave a strict assessment to the results of the two
elections as well as to the so-called vote of confidence. This is the
most significant.
(Correspondent) What were the results of the voting?
(Torosyan) I think it is not so important, as about four times as many
people were in favour as against. In fact, more than 40 deputies
supported views favourable for us, and only 10-12 were against. Simply
this figure was different during different votes.