"Reviewing" Armenia in Geneva
With a 20-minute delay, the UN began the Universal Periodic Review of Armenia in Geneva. The Armenian delegation is led by RA Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Arman Kirakossian who is the main speaker.
The delegation includes a total of 11 people, including Armenia's Permanent Representative to the UN Charles Aznavour, Head of the Department of International Organizations at the RA Ministry of Foreign Affairs Dz. Aghajanyan, adviser to Armenia's Permanent Mission at the UN Geneva Office L. Sayan and others.
When Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Arman Kirakossian began to present the right to self-determination as the irreversible right of nations and presented it as the right of the people of Nagorno-Karabakh, the Azeri representative asked to speak by procedure, mentioning that Nagorno-Karabakh is not in Armenia's territory and Armenia has no right to speak about the developments taking place in another territory.
The moderator replied that Azerbaijan could use the opportunity to speak only after the main speech and the comment was not procedural. After that, the Pakistani representative mentioned that there was no need for their speech, but said: "Azerbaijan's claim was substantiated," said the representative and proposed to take an adequate measure for their proposal.
Before the universal periodic review of Armenia, Azerbaijan asked ten questions to Armenia about violations of women's rights, family violence, discrimination and persecution against the yezdi in Armenia, the independent investigations of the events of 2008 March 1-2, the process of meeting the PACE resolutions, the issue related to ensuring plurality of mass media outlets and assaults against advocates and oppositionists.
Azerbaijan asked 14 out of the 36 questions included in the list of questions initially prepared for Armenia. Among the list of questions from a number of other countries were about violations of human rights, freedom of press and speech, the issue related to "A1+" television, gender equality and a number of other issues.
Levon Barseghyan
Geneva
