The Council of Europe's Committee of Ministers welcomed...

The Council of Europe's Committee of Ministers welcomed Armenia's ratification of the sixth protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights, the committee's chairman, Moldovan Foreign Minister Nicolae Dudau, said. "The date 29 September 2003 is important both for Armenia and for the Council of Europe. In depositing with the secretary-general the ratification instruments for the sixth protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights, which abolishes the death penalty in peacetime, my Armenian colleague, Vardan Oskanyan, has made irreversible the historic decision by his country's parliament to abolish the death penalty in Armenia. This brings us a little closer to achieving one of the Council of Europe's fundamental objectives, namely eliminating the death penalty for good from the whole of Europe," Nicolae Dudau said.