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Council of Europe Secretary General sends letter to Azerbaijani President

24 January 2012 11:57 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. Secretary General of the Council of Europe ThorbjÃ¸rn Jagland sent a letter to President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev. According to APA, the letter reads: â€œI was informed that You granted amnesty to Mehman Mammadov, Jabbar Savalan and Nizami Shahmuradov, as well as others, as part of the end-of-year traditional amnesty.

I would like to congratulate You for this gesture, which has been sought by the Council of Europe for quite some time. We also welcome the adoption on 27 December last year of a National Programme to increase the effectiveness of the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms in Azerbaijan.

As You may know, we are discussing a new Action Plan which, I hope, will further enhance cooperation between Azerbaijan and the Council of Europe and will allow for more progress to be realized in this field.

I therefore look forward to launching this new Action Plan together with You in Baku in due course.

I should also like to take this opportunity to express the hope that the Memorandum of Understanding â€“ which will soon be signed between Azerbaijan and the Council of Europe â€“ will enable our office in Baku to become fully functionalâ€.