The National Assembly does not intend to fund the participation of opposition Heritage faction member Larisa Alaverdyan in the work of the European People’s Party’s faction at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), it emerged this week.

“Authorities consistently continue to obstruct the work of Heritage. This is the sixth case when the work of parliamentarians is impeded so that they could not present the real situation in Armenia,” says head of the Heritage party’s parliamentary faction Stepan Safaryan.

Just last week, following a decision by Parliament Speaker Hovik Abrahamyan, Heritage’s Zaruhi Postanjyan was removed from Armenia’s main delegation to PACE and thus was stripped of the right to make speeches and vote.

As a result of changes made in the composition of the Armenian delegation to PACE, David Harutyunyan (Republican Party) and Armen Rustamyan (Dashnaktsutyun) became members of the Monitoring Commission – a PACE body that, among other things, also oversees Armenia’s reform of democratic institutions and progress in dealing with the consequences of the 2008 post-election crisis.

“It is beyond doubt that it is not a matter of Zaruhi Postanjyan, but a crime being committed against Heritage on the official level,” says Safaryan.

Postanjyan herself says that designs to isolate her failed because she went to Strasbourg at her own expense and, moreover, managed to circulate a paper there whereby proposed that the Assembly address the issue of the army’s involvement in the suppression of the March 1, 2008 anti-government protests in Yerevan.

She thinks that the goal of relegating her from the main delegation to reserve is to silence her on issues she wishes to raise at PACE related to the 2008 uprising.

Rustamyan, a senior representative of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun), meanwhile, is angered by the behavior and statements of Postanjyan at PACE.

“She made accusations against Dashnaktsutyun, arguing that it is a pseudo-opposition and cannot present the March 1 case at PACE and that I seized her seat in the delegation. It is in Armenia and not at the Council of Europe that it should be decided whether the opposition in Armenia is fake or not,” said Rustamyan.

The tension between Dashnaktsutyun and Heritage over the latest developments in Strasbourg overshadows the interaction that the two parties have had of late in opposing the Armenian-Turkish protocols. Safaryan says that they will still cooperate but “only if the goals of the parties coincide.”

Meanwhile PACE co-rapporters on Armenia John Prescott and George Colombier made a statement this week, urging the Armenian authorities to comply with the reforms suggested by the National Assembly’s ad hoc commission that investigated the March 1, 2008 events.

They said that the recommendations should be accepted, especially those concerning police and long overdue reforms of the electoral code. The deadline for submitting a timetable of implementing the suggestions is set for March 17 when the Monitoring Commission is due to meet in Paris, France.