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The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) managed to be up to the mark: there is hope that not everything is lost, while ‘caviar’ shines not in all dark corners,” Armenian MP Shirak Torosyan told Panorama.am as he commented on the January 26 votes on two controversial anti-Armenian reports. The votes were held during the ongoing PACE winter session.

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on January 26 voted on two reports:  “Inhabitants of frontier regions of Azerbaijan are deliberately deprived of water” – a scandalous report prepared by Milica Markovic, MP from Bosnia and Herzegovina - was adopted by 98 votes to 71, with 40 abstentions. Another controversial report that drew a wide response - “Escalation of violence in Nagorno-Karabakh and the other occupied territories of Azerbaijan” prepared by British MP Robert Walter who holds Turkish citizenship was rejected in a 66-77 vote.

According to Torosyan, Walter’s draft resolution that contained dangerous wordings posed a more serious threat. He expressed satisfaction with the work done by Armenia’s diplomatic corps.

“PACE just did not allow Azerbaijan to gain any advantage in the conflict settlement, even at the level of PACE. A comparison shows that we are at an advantage since those two resolutions were not equal. In a sense, it can be considered a victory,” he noted.  

“From the point of view of fairness and reasonable judgment, those resolutions should not have been drafted or they both should have been rejected. A manifestation of ‘caviar diplomacy’ is evident here.  It should be noted that PACE ensured political justice for itself,” Torosyan said.