YEREVAN, JANUARY 27, ARTSAKHPRESS. There is a clear understanding in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) that the Lachin corridor is blockaded by Azerbaijan and that it must be opened immediately, the Vice Speaker of Parliament of Armenia and the head of the Armenian delegation to PACE Ruben Rubinyan said in a statement on social media.
“As a result of the debates the PACE Bureau will discuss the possibility of preparing a report on the topic. Together with our colleagues we will continue to advance the idea of sending a fact-finding group to Lachin corridor,” Rubinyan said in the statement after delivering a speech at the PACE debates on the Lachin corridor blockade.
Below is the transcript of Rubinyan’s speech at the PACE debates.
“Thank you, Mister President.
First I want to thank all of the speakers who spoke before me for speaking the truth.
That’s very important.
The people in Nagorno-Karabakh may be freezing right now because of the blockade, but your words will certainly warm their hearts, because they will know they are not alone, even though Azerbaijan wants them to think they are alone and that nobody cares.
But you show that people do care.
Dear colleagues,
I know conflicts tend to be complicated, but sometimes they are quite simple.
We have a situation when Azerbaijan, the president of Azerbaijan, on 9 November 2020 has signed under a paper which says the Lachin corridor should be under the control of peacekeepers and the Republic of Azerbaijan guarantees the flow of cargo, people, vehicles from Armenia to Nagorno-Karabakh and the other way around through the Lachin Corridor.
Now we don’t have this situation.
This is already the 46th day when this road is blocked, and furthermore there is no gas and there’s no electricity because Azerbaijan has cut them off.
Of course, as some of the speakers mentioned, Azerbaijan will deny this and our Azerbaijani colleagues will start to bring arguments saying that first there is no blockade and second, they will start justifying the blockade –which according to them is not there– by the so-called eco-activists.
And there is only one way to check this, dear friends.
Let’s suppose that there’s some evil Armenian conspiracy, a worldwide conspiracy, which has somehow managed to lie to everyone and to convince the Americans, the Russians, the French, the Iranians, the UK, the OSCE, the Council of Europe, the ECHR that there is a blockade which actually doesn’t exist.
Okay, this means that Azerbaijan must agree that, in this case, this organisation PACE should send a fact-finding mission to the Lachin corridor immediately, because that would be the only way for our Azerbaijani colleagues to prove that we are making false accusations. And when I say “we are making” I mean me and my Armenian colleagues and all the other colleagues which are not Armenian and who spoke today.
If our Azerbaijan colleagues do not agree to this, this means that they do actually have genocidal intent, their intention is to rid Nagorno-Karabakh of its Armenian population. And this means that this organisation should act accordingly and should take measures to prevent this.
Thank you.”
