The head of the Armenian delegation to the PACE Ruben Rubinyan, speaking at the PACE winter session in Strasbourg, noted that the head of the Azerbaijani delegation Seidov was trying to construct his speech as if there were no more problems between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
"My Azerbaijani counterpart Mr. Seidov spoke today about the need to strengthen the atmosphere of trust between Azerbaijan and Armenia after the last war. Let's talk about the atmosphere of trust. An official stamp dedicated to 2020 has been issued in Azerbaijan last month, depicting a man in a protective suit similar to that worn by members of the COVID medical staff. The man in the stamp cleans or disinfects the part of the map on which Nagorno-Karabakh is located, and he certainly disinfects that part of the Armenians.
Is this how Mr. Seidov and the Azerbaijani authorities see the strengthening of the atmosphere of trust? If so, this is very strange, because I do not think that in the history of mankind there was such an example that the Nazi ideology led to the strengthening of the atmosphere of trust.
The other important issue, of course, is the issue of prisoners of war. According to the ceasefire statement, all prisoners of war and other detainees should be released immediately in accordance with the principle of "all for all". Unfortunately, this did not happen, as Azerbaijan refused to complete the process and, moreover, after the ceasefire, the Azerbaijani side carried out other attacks on two villages, as a result of which other prisoners of war were taken prisoner. Azerbaijan has launched criminal proceedings against them, calling them "criminals" and "terrorists." I do not think this is a step towards building trust.
Dear colleagues, 20 years ago Armenia and Azerbaijan became members of the Council of Europe. I know that during these 20 years, many of you are tired of the ongoing Armenian-Azerbaijani disputes in this hall. As a result, many of you were not so willing to talk about the problem, many of you, perhaps, considered it important to be balanced, tried not to show bias, as Mr. Seidov mentioned. But today I will ask you to be biased.
Biased not in favor of Armenia, but in favor of humanity, in favor of peace and human rights, in favor of the rejection of the Nazi ideology. I urge you to condemn the outrageous actions and language used by the Azerbaijani authorities in Azerbaijan and to call for the immediate release of the Armenian prisoners of war in Azerbaijan, as these people are simply in imminent danger of being killed", Rubinyan said.
