Armenia to back PACE president's resignation – lawmaker

The Armenian delegation to the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) will vote for the measure demanding Pedro Agramunt's resignation as the institution's president, says a senior parliamentarian.

Speaking to Tert.am, Armen Rustamyan, the head of the national delegation, said they also joined  an earlier petition to back the European colleagues’ call for ousting Agramunt.

“The OSCE needs to initiate a serious process of recovery. And that’s what we now are actually eye-witnessing. Agramunt’s resignation will be an important milestone helping the Assembly recover, and giving it a new quality. But that recovery should not be limited to Agramunt’s resignation alone. A corresponding body has been created to investigate the corruption links,” he added.

Rustamyan, who heads the Armenian Revolutionary Federation Dashnaksutyun (ARF-D) faction in the National Assembly, said the materials under consideration reveal also many others’ complicity in corruption schemes.

“I think this is the very process we had been long seeking for, because the PACE was losing its reputationm having turned into a tool for Turkish-Azerbaijani manipulations. Corruption had undermined the PACE’s reputation. So what they are doing now is practically [an attempt] to re-establish that reputation,” he said, adding that the delegation is now determined to follow the transparency of the process.