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“The initial and final variants of the PACE report on “The functioning of democratic institutions in Turkey” were largely different. The report was made tougher because whatever is happening in Turkey on daily bases is a direct assault of European value system,” Armenian PACE delegation member, Armen Rustamyan told Panorama.am.

According to him, even the Turkish-Azerbaijani lobby didn’t help to prevent all the formulations and evaluations, which aren’t favourable for Turkey’s current regime.

“It is clear that Erdogan’s anti-democratic and authoritarian regime is established in Turkey. Now that Erdogan is considering taking revenge on the parliamentarians, most of the [delegates] have lost their patience. The premise of the report is rather strict, yet it lacks a logical ending. The problems mentioned in the report don’t even exist in countries under monitoring. The Turkish lobby managed to prevent the final political evaluation. A compromise decision was made to get back to monitoring in 2017. Turkey realized that it will be the centre of attention next year as well. Nevertheless, this was a yellow card for Turkey,” Mr. Rustamyan said.
The Assembly demands from Turkey to repeal Article 299 of the Penal Code (Insulting the President of Republic) and Article 301 (Degrading the Turkish Nation, the State of the Turkish Republic, the Organs and Institutions of the State), which forbids speaking about Genocide in Turkey.

Speaking about whether Turkey will fulfil the demands, Armen Rustamyan said that it’s highly unlikely.
“This is a legal tool for Turkey to fight against dissidents. This is of strategic importance. It’s possible that slight changes will be introduced to these articles but they’ll continue to operate,” the delegate said.

Considering all this, next year, when it’s time for Turkey to pass from post-monitoring stage back to monitoring, Mr. Rustamyan doesn’t rule out that serious sanctions will also be imposed.