TV notes change of tack in PACE rapporteur’s stance on Karabakh

Arminfo, Yerevan
1 Feb 05

STEPANAKERT

The Nagornyy Karabakh Republic NKR Public TV and Radio Broadcasting
Company produced from its archives an interview with a member of the
British House of Commons, the chairman of the commission of the
non-member countries of the Council of Europe CE , David Atkinson,
(currently rapporteur on Nagornyy Karabakh), in the village of Kichan
of Mardakert of the NKR in October 1993.

In his 1993 speech David Atkinson noted, in particular, that he had
heard much about Nagornyy Karabakh, but he was here for the first
time, an Arminfo special correspondent reported from Stepanakert.
“What I have seen, David Atkinson said, is above my imagination. Here
is a real war which is taking away many lives on a daily basis. It is
obvious that Azerbaijan launched this war, Azerbaijan will not be a
member of the Council of Europe unless it is stopped”.

Speaking with admiration about churches in the town of Shushi ,
Atkinson noted that the Azerbaijani vandals desecrated the Christian
church Kazachetsots, turning it into an ammunition depot. “This fact
must be condemned and I shall certainly tell my colleagues about
this,” Atkinson noted.

“I think the people of Karabakh have the right to decide their own
destiny and future. Our organization and I shall personally do
everything so that the Karabakh Armenians live a free and full life on
their land,” David Atkinson noted in 1993. On becoming the PACE
rapporteur on Nagornyy Karabakh in 2004, he announced that the
principle of the right to self-determination is not applied to
Nagornyy Karabakh.