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At the PACE session on September 28, the Committee on Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development of the PACE discussed a report on the Sarsang water reservoir drafted by Milica Markovic.

Anna Mkrtchyan, the staff correspondent of Panorama.am in Strasbourg, talked with Vice Speaker of Armenia’s National Assembly, Head of the Armenian delegation to the PACE Ms. Hermine Naghdalyan about the report that has a controversial, anti-Armenian title “The Intentional Deprivation of Inhabitants of Azerbaijani Border Regions of Water”.  

According to H. Naghdalyan, both the abovementioned report by M. Markovic and the notorious report written by member of the PACE Political Affairs and Democracy Committee Robert Walter are “various means of Azerbaijani attacks, consistent actions characterized by the same style being launched by Azerbaijani lobbyists”.

“The report aims to create a favorable image for Azerbaijan, while blaming Armenia. During the PACE session, numerous accusations were made against Azerbaijan – accusations of political and legal nature and also related to the fulfillment of its obligations, so the Azerbaijani authorities today are facing an important task of creating a situation, in which they could accuse Armenia. In this connection I would like to remind you that just a few days ago when reports were given in the PACE Bureau, the leader of the PACE’s Social-Democratic caucus Andreas Gross – one of the most experienced and authoritative delegates in the Assembly,  I would like to stress this to show that the matter concerns a well-informed person – expressed an important idea in a few words that Armenia is not problematic state for the Council of Europe, whereas Azerbaijan is currently a problematic state,” the head of Armenian delegation to PACE said. 

H. Naghdalyan also noted that the rapporteur has been playing for time under various hollow pretexts, and now that a year has passed since the approval of her report, Milica Markovic asked the Armenian government to arrange her visit to Armenia.  
“All along we tried to explain to her that it would be important to visit the Nagorno Karabakh Republic while writing a report, we indicated that the Sarsang reservoir is in NKR, and not in Yerevan, not in Armenia. The rapporteur’s reluctance to visit Nazgorno Karabakh can be explained by the fact that Milica Markovic, who is guided by Azerbaijan, considers it inadmissible to establish direct contacts with Karabakh authorities.  It is a political component. Thus, the PACE rapporteur did not visit Artsakh so as the see the real situation. She gave preference to one-sided materials prepared by Azerbaijan, and  the result is an accusatory document against Armenia. This is the essence of the report.

We repeatedly told the rapporteur that we would be glad to welcome her in Armenia where she could see Lake Sevan and our reservoirs, and in order to see the Sarsang reservoir, one has to travel to Karabakh.  A visit by a rapporteur to Karabakh is necessary, and for this purpose the rapporteur shall apply to authorities of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic  since it is impossible to write about something that you did not see and do not know  and then to submit that document to an authoritative organization. We need to continue our work regarding this report and others as well, and we should provide explanations and use other means to deal with such attacks, “ Ms. Naghdalyan said.

According to the head of Armenian delegation to PACE, organizational work is underway to write a report and collect facts, while the contents will be discussed following the rapporteur’s visit to Nagorno Karabakh.