The Armenian delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has not attended a meeting of the subcommittee on Karabakh.
The ad hoc committee met on Monday during the PACE summer session in Strasbourg.
The head of the Armenian delegation to PACE, David Harutyunyan, said that the delegation maintained its previous position and would not attend the subcommittee, News.am reported.
The Parliamentary Assembly decided to revive the subcommittee on the implementation of Resolution 1416 (2005) at its session in January this year. The resolution calls for a peaceful resolution of the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh and the withdrawal of Armenian troops from occupied Azerbaijani territory, something that Armenia is refusing to do.
The Armenian delegation voted against restoration of the subcommittee, as they say it will be biased towards Azerbaijan and will not help the OSCE Minsk Group, which is mediating a settlement to the Karabakh conflict.
Presumably in an attempt to appear constructive after boycotting the subcommittee, the Armenian delegation has announced that it will stop criticizing Azerbaijan.
"We have also announced a unilateral moratorium on attacks and accusations against each other as a demonstration of a constructive approach," News.am reported Harutyunyan as saying.
The head of the Armenian delegation said that he would like to see his Azerbaijani colleagues doing the same, but they had declined.
"Now, in fact, a unilateral moratorium is in place," Harutyunyan said.
He could not say how long the moratorium would last, but said if the approach did not work, the decision might be reconsidered.
"But it will not happen during the current session," Harutyunyan said.
The PACE summer session runs from 20 to 24 June.
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