Statement On the Report of ODIHR Director Ingibjörg Sólrún Gísladóttir delivered by Ambassador Arman Kirakossian at the 1159th Meeting of the OSCE Permanent

05 October, 2017

We would like to thank the ODIHR Director Mrs. Gísladóttir for presenting the report on HDIM 2017.

We would also like to thank the Austrian Chairmanship, ODIHR and the Government of Poland for their efforts and arrangements in planning, building consensus over agenda and conducting the HDIM.

The HDIM is a key framework wherein participating states reaffirm the importance of human dimension commitments by mutually monitoring each other, sharing good practices and getting feedback from civil society. The human dimension implementation meetings have never lacked passion, dedication and hot debates, and this year was not exception as well.

Armenia respects the right of all participating states to decide the level of their engagement or as we also witnessed disengagement in the HDIM. However, we would like to point out that mutual assessment of human rights is a part of our OSCE commitments particularly those put forward in the Astana declaration wherein we reaffirmed that the commitments undertaken in the field of the human dimension are matters of direct and legitimate concern to all participating States.

Armenia is ready to cooperate with all participating states in implementing this commitment in an anticipation that points and requests we raised in this HDIM will be in one or other form addressed by those who were not present therein.

The HDIM is a wide framework for dialogue and it certainly reflects the current level of dialogue in our Organization. This HDIM indicates that this dialogue is not undertaken in genuine manner at least by some participating states coming to the HDIM with government organized NGOs which tried to cheapen and spoil dialogue.

We took positive note of the new changes introduced in the arrangements of the HDIM. In our view, we need to continue to assess new ways of optimizing the human dimension events particularly HDIM. We think more efforts should be done to construct genuine dialogue. The HDIM should not be reduced merely to a meeting place between participating states and various representatives of civil society, first and foremost it is an intergovernmental platform for dialogue among participating states themselves. The good practices of UN Human Rights Council and the Council of Europe in constructing such dialogue without diminishing the feedback of civil society can serve as important reference point here.

Thank you.

MFA RA
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