VIDEO: Turkish Chair Interrupts Mamijanian's Speech on Artsakh in PACE

Representatives of the Turkish and Azerbaijani delegations attempted to interrupt the speech of Armenian National Assembly Deputy Hayk Mamijanian regarding the status of Artsakh at the PACE session. The meeting of the PACE plenary session was chaired by a representative of the Turkish national delegation, who interrupted Mamijanian’s speech to give the floor to an Azerbaijani delegate, who claimed that the Armenian deputy had no right to speak about the conflict because the discussion of the issue in the PACE arena had ended.

Members of the Armenian delegation, including CP deputy Vladimir Vardanian and Ruben Rubinian, requested to be recognized for parliamentary procedure. They emphasized that the chair had no right to interrupt their colleague's speech and demanded the opportunity for Mamijanian to finish.

Below is the full text of Mamijanian's speech:

“Ladies and gentlemen,
On the first day of this session, we had a discussion about the aggression unleashed by Azerbaijan against Armenia. There is a saying: ‘There is no gratitude for the truth,’ but I still want to thank those who have had the courage to speak the truth from this and other platforms. I certainly mean those who had the courage to voice the truth about my people. All those who were not deaf to the voice of my people. Such manifestations of courage have become rare in our time.

However, the discussion did not address the issues related to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. We did not talk about the people who believed that the five statements made by global leaders within the framework of the OSCE Minsk Group had value in the context of the self-determination of Nagorno-Karabakh. People who peacefully lived in their homeland and hoped that the words ‘no use of force’ would have an impact. They were brutally deceived.

Due to the foolish diplomacy conducted by the current government of Armenia, the idea of separating the resolution of Armenian-Azerbaijani relations from the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is becoming a reality. The world is preparing to leave small Artsakh alone against Azerbaijan. Unfortunately, this story cannot end like the story of David and Goliath. And the reason is not the lack of will of the people of Artsakh to stand up for the future of their homeland. The reason is that in the history of international relations, conflicts related to national self-determination have never been resolved through negotiations between the metropolis and the minority.

This story will end for Artsakh in the same way as the story of the Armenian military woman who was tortured and killed by Azerbaijani soldiers. I do not at all underestimate any issue that has been discussed in this hall, but I am deeply convinced that the torture of a woman, which was accompanied by live skinning, leaving inscriptions on her chest and abdomen, leaving a stone in the eye socket and a severed finger in her mouth, has at least the same importance as the manifestations of gender discrimination in the world of sports that we discussed yesterday. The history of Artsakh will end the same way as the stories of Armenian prisoners of war who were captured and killed by Azerbaijani forces simply for being Armenians.

I know that some of you are tired of hearing our speeches on this issue, while others are horrified by the incidents presented in my speech. However, if the status of Nagorno-Karabakh is kept outside the framework of Armenian-Azerbaijani relations, rest assured that my next speeches regarding the people of Nagorno-Karabakh from the PACE podium will be even more horrifying, perhaps even written in the past tense.

Ladies and gentlemen, if you continue to ignore what is happening in Nagorno-Karabakh, it will be very difficult for me to wipe the smile off the chair's face, which was trying to obstruct me from speaking.

Thank you.”