MP Maria Karapetyan from Armenia’s ruling Civil Contract party addressed opposition criticism following backlash in Georgia over Armenian lawmakers' support for a resolution adopted by the Euronest Parliamentary Assembly.
In a Facebook post, Karapetyan explained that ruling party MPs voted in favor of the resolution as a whole because it expressed support for the Armenia-Azerbaijan peace agreement preliminarily signed in Washington on August 8.
“Mr. Artur Khachatryan, you need to calm down. Mr. Garnik Danielyan should calm down, too. If that’s difficult, review the votes and see how Ms. Anna Grigoryan and Ms. Elinar Vardanyan voted in favor of silencing academic voices in Georgia, and how you supported awarding the Sakharov Prize to detainees in Georgia. Then try again to calm yourselves.
We, as ruling party MPs, supported the resolution as a whole because it reaffirmed support for the Armenia-Azerbaijan peace framework signed on August 8 in Washington, including commitments on unblocking based on territorial integrity and sovereignty, the TRIPP initiative, continuation of border delimitation, the withdrawal of Azerbaijani troops from Armenian territory, and addressing the issue of Armenians held in Azerbaijan.
Meanwhile, opposition MPs did not participate in the vote on this resolution, disregarding these critical provisions. If your amendment about the return to Nagorno-Karabakh had passed, would you still have abstained from voting on the full resolution? You've also spread misinformation about that amendment being rejected.
If we, the ruling party, intended to persuade MEPs to vote against your amendment, we would have done so in advance. But as shown in the livestream, it was the MEPs who requested a break to discuss the matter internally, while we remained seated. And once again, please tell Mr. Garnik Danielyan to calm down,” she wrote.
The support of Armenian MPs for the Euronest resolution has triggered criticism in Georgia. Georgian Parliament Deputy Speaker Nino Tsilosani remarked that by supporting a resolution which questions the legitimacy of Georgia’s government, Armenian lawmakers effectively expressed mistrust in their own Prime Minister. The October 31 resolution cited concerns about democratic backsliding in Georgia.
