Armen Gevorgyan: Azerbaijan’s and Turkey’s further membership in the Council of Europe will mean nothing but the organization’s ideological demise

Unfortunately, the Council of Europe has been failing in its
prime mission for decades on end, i.e., to ensure democratic stability and
security in the post-Soviet region. We still witness continuous conflicts and
wars unfolding, as well as the ethnic cleansing operations organized by
Azerbaijan in Nagorno-Karabakh. And they must still be prosecuted and condemned
for this crime. Member of the RA Delegation to PACE Armen Gevorgyan said this
at the Oct. 12 plenary session of the PACE Autumn Session 2023, the RA NA
official website reports. 

According to Gevorgyan, the experiments of the past 30 years
have unfortunately led to the democracy and human rights transformation from
true values into a mechanism for advancing geopolitical interests. 

“Not only has this instigated a rivalry between the
so-called liberal values and conservative ones, but it has also introduced the
practice of promoting democracy in non-democratic ways,” Gevorgyan said. He
also noted that some PACE member states themselves do not fully hold to
democratic values and principles and because of their membership in this
organization, democracy in Europe has begun to regress. 

In conclusion, Gevorgyan noted that every European Council
member state has the full right to determine its national interests and to
further them in accordance with the fundamental documents adopted by the
Council. 

“I can clearly say that Azerbaijan’s and Turkey’s further
membership in the Council of Europe will mean nothing but the organization’s
ideological demise,” Gevorgyan said.