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Samad Seyidov: Azerbaijan has almost fully implemented Council of Europe commitments

03 July 2007 14:22 (UTC +04:00)

Commenting on the visit of Ago monitoring group from the Committee of Ministers of Council of Europe to Baku Samad Seyidov linked it with investigating Azerbaijanâ€™s fulfilling commitments vis-Ã -vis the Council of Europe.
Permanent Swedish representative to the Council of Europe Per SjÃ¶gren leads the group. The group includes permanent ambassadors Eberhard KÃ¶lsch (Germany), Bruno Guen (France), Peteris Elferts (Latvia), Stellan Stolan (Romania) and Alexander Alekseyev (Russia). They will be accompanied by CE secretariat officials Puarel, Aarnio-Lvoff and Cheliento.
The current state of the relations of Azerbaijan with the Council of Europe, implementation of the commitments, independence of courts, activity of local authorities, freedom of media and the Nagorno Karabakh problem will mainly be debated during the meetings.
Ago group is expected to meet Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, head of Presidentâ€™s Administration Ramiz Mehdiyev, speaker of Azerbaijani Parliament Ogtay Asadov, Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov, chairman of Central Election Commission (CEC) Mazahir Panahov, chief of Azerbaijan National Television and Radio Council Nushirevan Meherremli in the framework of their visit to Azerbaijan. Justice Minister of the group is expected to participate in the roundtable on activity of judicial system with the participation of Prosecutor General, chiefs of Constitutional Court, Supreme Court, Bar and Commissioner for Human Rights.
Samad Seyidov said that Azerbaijan has not fulfilled several commitments described on document #222 of Council of Europe. The parliamentarian said that one of the unfulfilled commitments is the peaceful solution of Nagorno Karabakh conflict, and adoption of draft law on alternative service.
Though Azerbaijan is neither in the condition of war, nor peace, it submitted a draft on alternative service to Council of Europe. The issue regarding this commitment will be solved after the reference of the experts of the organization,â€ he said.
Mr.Seyidov also commented on Azerbaijanâ€™s not joining several conventions of Council of Europe. He stated that any new convention is brought to the agenda at each session of PACE and the states are invited to sign this document.
â€œSome of the states conclude these conventions, some of them not. This is the issue concerning the internal work, internal interests of the countries, the country is not obliged to adopt this commitment,â€ he said. /APA/