The vote on the resolution on cooperation between the UN and the Council of Europe took place on April 26, with 122 nations, including Armenia, voting to support it, 18 nations abstaining and only five voting against it.
Armenia’s Foreign Ministry explained to RFE/RL’s Armenian Service that “Armenia did not support the controversial paragraph of the resolution, but voted in favor of the resolution itself.”
A press release posted on the UN website confirms that while compromises were reached on lots of issues, no consensus was reached on paragraph 9. This is exactly the paragraph that speaks about “Russian aggression against Ukraine and Georgia” and calls for “providing redress to victims and bringing to justice all those responsible for the violations of international law.”
Eventually, it was decided to hold a separate vote on this paragraph, in which Armenia abstained.
Thus, by its April 26 vote at the UN Armenia showed no change in its neutral position on the Russian-Ukrainian war, again avoiding calling Moscow an aggressor.
Against the background of media reports that several key partners of Russia, including Armenia, Kazakhstan, China, India, Turkey and others voted in favor of an “anti-Russian resolution”, Deputy Permanent Representative of Russia to the United Nations Dmitry Polyansky said that “we are talking about an ordinary resolution of cooperation between the United Nations and the Council of Europe, and many of Russia’s partners did not support the controversial paragraph.”
In the separate vote on paragraph 9, only 81 countries voted in favor of calling Russia an aggressor, while 48 countries, including Armenia, abstained and 10 voted against it.
Sargis Khandanian, chairman of the Armenian National Assembly’s Foreign Relations Committee, said that Armenia could not have voted otherwise on the general resolution on strengthening cooperation between the UN and the Council of Europe that talks about such key things as promotion of the rule of law and democracy, freedom of speech and thought, fight against terrorism, trafficking, etc.
“Armenia is a member of the Council of Europe, and a number of institutions that operate within the Council of Europe are very important for Armenia in terms of the protection of human rights, the development of democracy. And that resolution also pursues such goals and has such emphasis. So it would be strange if Armenia did not join the adoption of this resolution,” Khandanian said.
“As a matter of fact, Armenia joined the entire resolution, and one should consider the resolution as a whole and not focus on one paragraph, which contains different emphases,” the pro-government lawmaker concluded.