YEREVAN, 13 MAY, NOYAN TAPAN: As president of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Mevlut Davutoglu considers the exclusion of application of double standards towards the Assembly’s 47-member states and ensuring objective, balanced and impartial attitude towards all countries, including Armenia, as one of his supremacies, said Davutoglu during a May 13 press conference in Yerevan. In response to journalists' recalls, he did not wish to comment on the statements that he had made in favor of Azerbaijan and against Armenia as head of the Turkish parliamentary delegation to the PACE for years. Touching upon his initiative to reestablish a subcommittee on the Karabakh conflict at the PACE, Davutoglu mentioned that that was part of the Assembly's Resolution N1416 adopted in 2005 and had been on the agenda of the Assembly’s Bureau for a year after the death of Lord Russel Johnston. There is no final decision yet and the Armenian and Azeri delegations are currently holding non-formal discussions and coming to terms. He also mentioned that it is still undecided as to who the president of the subcommittee would be. Summing up the results of his two-day visit to Yerevan, M. ?avu?o?lu rated the collaboration with the Armenian Delegation to the PACE and head of the delegation David Harutyunyan as excellent. The PACE President expressed hope that Armenia will be consistent with fulfilling the Assembly’s assignments, including reforms of electoral processes, the police and judicial system, mass media, especially ensuring the independence of television stations. According to him, there are still issues that remain rather unsolved. The first issue is that it is unacceptable that nobody has been brought to justice for the 10 murders committed during the events of 2008 March 1 and the second issue is related to people deprived of liberty, particularly editor-in-chief of "Haykakan Zhamanak" daily, Nikol Pashinyan. How is the PACE preparing to respond to the official invitation from the Chairman of Artsakh's National Assembly to send an observatory mission to observe Nagorno-Karabakh Republic's May 23 parliamentary elections? In response, Davutoglu informed that he had transmitted the invitation to the Assembly's Bureau. The latter had discussed the issue during its April session and decided not to send observers to this and other zones of frozen conflicts. The journalists also asked why the PACE President had refused to visit the Armenian Genocide memorial. First, Davutoglu announced that there was no point imposing the visit to this or that site in the Assembly’s rules and regulations and secondly, it was his personal decision. “I respect your opinions, but everyone must respect mine as well,” he said. Summing up the conference, M. Davutoglu said this was his first visit to Armenia and that he was leaving with good impressions and with the hope to return in October to take part in the forum "For the Future of Democracy" to be held in Yerevan. Gayane Melikyan

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