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Brussels-based European Armenian Federation for Justice and Democracy launched on January 8 a signature collection campaign on Change.org in order  to prevent the adoption of two anti-Armenian draft resolutions on Karabakh by the PACE. Those two drafts are British MP Robert Walter’s report “Escalation of violence in Nagorno Karabakh and other occupied territories of Azerbaijan,” and Bosnian MP Milica Marković’s report “Inhabitants of frontier regions of Azerbaijan are deliberately deprived of water”. The campaign got 7,592 signatures so far.

Bedo Demirdjian, Public Relations and Communications Officer at European Armenian Federation for Justice & Democracy (EAFJD), told the correspondent of Panorama.am in Strasbourg that it is the first time that they have initiated such a signature campaign.

“The purpose of the signature campaign is to start strong public mobilization, to inform the Armenian public about the PACE and how we can work with it. This work is more public than other activities we have carried out so far regarding the issue.  We sent a letter to PACE President Ann Brasseur, each MP, and Hay Dat (Armenian Cause) other committees in Europe, which are now holding meetings with MPs of their countries. The aim of the meetings is to explain the essence of those resolutions, how they originated, and to provide information about the rapporteurs and their motives for writing such reports. Until the last moment, we will attempt to influence the MPs’ vote by explaining everything that we have done in the past two months,” Demirdjian said.

When asked if any work is done to spread information about the two rapporteurs among voters in their own countries, to inform voters about their motives for writing those reports, Bedo Demirdjian replied that information is being provided about British MP Robert Walter since there is an Armenian community in the UK, but no work of this kind was done in Bosnia Herzegovina that has no Armenian community.  

“But work has been done among the PACE heads, secretariat, and political factions to present information about Walter, his wife who is of Turkish descent, and his pro-Azerbaijani stance, as well as about Milica Markovic,” Bedo Demirdjian said.

Asked what will happen if PACE adopts the resolutions, Demirdjian said that PACE resolutions are advisory and will not have a direct impact on the Karabakh conflict resolution, but they could set a precedent for Azerbaijan, causing it to introduce such resolutions in other international organizations as well. 

“Work is underway to prevent a precedent from being created because such resolutions could make the Aliyev regime most unpredictable. Let’s hope the resolutions will not be passed,” Bedo Demirdjian said.

To remind, the abovementioned resolutions will be put to vote on January 26 during the winter session of the PACE in Strasbourg.