In the jubilee twenty-fifth year of PABSEC during the Plenary Session in the Capital of Ukraine we witnessed an unprecedented phenomenon.

At the beginning of the opening of the Fiftieth Jubilee Meeting of the Assembly, when the members of the delegations were waiting in the Session Hall for about an hour, it became clear that on the initiative of the PABSEC Secretary General and the Head of the Ukrainian delegation the heads of all delegations stood apart and discussed certain issue. Only the Head of the Delegation of the National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia were not invited to that discussion. We qualify this as an insult not only towards Armenian delegation, but also to all delegations and the whole structure.

During the PABSEC twenty-year history there has never been such a case, and we assess that work style as violation of the traditions and essence of the structure. Such work style is inadmissible and condemnable for any Parliamentary Assembly. As a sign of complaint, the Armenian delegation left the Session Hall of the Assembly.

Afterwards it became clear that, as a result of the abovementioned discussion, an amendment was made on the conflicts existing in the region in the declaration which completely contradicts the complex principle of the international law – non-enforcement of the force and force threat, territorial integrity and law of the peoples’ free self-determination.

The Armenian delegation to the PABSEC calls on all delegations not to be imposed on provocations, not to serve the economic structure to the political interests of some states, to condemn this kind of work style and to return to the field of constructive cooperation which stems from the essence and traditions of the PABSEC.

29 November 2017

Kiev