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Azerbaijani oppositionists refuse to meet with delegation of Council of Europe

08 December 2009 15:15 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Elnur Mammadli â€“ APA. Representatives of Azerbaijani opposition parties refused to meet with the delegation of the Council of Europe Congress of Local and Regional Authorities. Chairman of Azerbaijan Democratic Party Sardar Jalaloglu told APA that unethical behavior of the CE representatives towards the oppositionists caused this.
The meeting had been scheduled for 13.00, then it was rescheduled by the CE representatives. Jalaloglu said they went to the appointed place.
â€œThe representatives of the Council of Europe invited us to the hall. We entered the hall together with the representatives of the authorities. But the representatives of the Council of Europe told us that they would first meet with the representatives of the authorities and then with the oppositionists. I protested. Actually, they were to meet with us first, because the representatives of the authorities were two and represented one party, we were six and represented six parties. We awaited for an hour and then came to the conclusion that it contradicts ethical norms and is disrespect to us. Therefore, we refused the meeting,â€ he said.
According to Jalaloglu, this attitude shows that the Council of Europe is not seriously interested in democracy in Azerbaijan.

Chairman of Umid Party Igbal Agazadeh, Chairman of Azerbaijan Popular Front Party Ali Karimli, acting Chairman of Azerbaijan Liberal Party Evez Temirkhan, Chairman of Azerbaijan Democratic Party Sardar Jalaloglu, Chairman of Citizen and Development Party Ali Aliyev and Chairman of the Election Department of Musavat Gulaga Aslanli went to meet with the representatives of the Council of Europe.