Unpunished membership of Azerbaijan and Turkiye in CoE will only meet  ideological demise of organisation - Armenian MP

ArmInfo. Yesterday, member of the RA NA Delegation to PACE Armen Gevorgyan gave a speech during  the debate on the topic of the PACE Autumn Session: The Role of the Council of Europe in preventing conflicts, restoring credibility of international institutions and promoting global peace. 

As the press service of the RA NA reports, the MP noted:

"Dear colleagues,

I will reflect on two observations pertaining to the future of the  Council of Europe and this Assembly keeping in mind the situation in  the post-Soviet space.

First, today, the Council of Europe presents our people with a rather  dangerous choice to make between a genuine democracy and  authoritarianism. Such a strange choice exists due to the fact that  our organisation, is loyal to the coexistence of political regimes,  like in Turkiye and Azerbaijan, under our common umbrella.

Therefore, I am asking you to be alert that our organisation does not  transform from being a champion of democratic governance and human  rights into a greenhouse for authoritarian regimes.

Second, the past 30 years of experiments resulted in an unfortunate  transformation of democracy and human rights from genuine values into  a mechanism for promoting geopolitical interests. This has created  not only competition between so-called liberal values and  conservative traditions but also created a practice of promoting  democracy by non-democratic means. Double standards, power, politics,  oil and gas have emerged as the dominant factors in international  relations, instead of democratic culture, human rights and the rule  of law.

As a result of the above-mentioned, in my opinion, the Council of  Europe has, unfortunately, been failing its core mission for decades.  Namely, the strengthening of the democratic stability and security in  the post-Soviet area. We still are witnessing continuous conflicts  and new wars. We have recorded the ethnic cleansing in Nagorno-  Karabakh by Azerbaijan and that crime has yet to be prosecuted and  condemned. We have to recognise that some members themselves have not  yet fully adopted the traditions and rules of democracy but with  their accession to our organisation, democracy in general began  backsliding in Europe.

Dear colleagues, 

let me be clear any Council of Europe member state has the full right  to determine their own national interests and pursue those interests  but only in accordance with the founding documents of the Council.  Only this approach will help to prevent wars and conflicts, prevent  crimes against humanity or serve as a reference point for democratic  peace and prosperity. I strongly believe that this organisation will  have the potential to continue pursuing its mission of upholding  democracy, supporting democratic transitions and the rule of law in  its member states if we avoid selective approaches in defending  values and human rights.

I conclude by observing that the further unpunished membership of  Azerbaijan and Turkiye in the Council of Europe will only meet the  ideological demise of this organisation."