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Elkhan Suleymanov addresses PACE President, CE Secretary General, PACE Secretary General

14 June 2014 16:51 (UTC +04:00)

Baku – APA. Member of the Azerbaijani Delegation to the PACE, Deputy Elkhan Suleymanov has addressed President of the PACE Anne Brasseur, Secretary General of the Council of Europe Thorbjorn Jagland, PACE Secretary General Wojciech Sawicki, members of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, and members of the Bureau of the Council of Europe.

APA reports that the addressing has stressed that as a consequence of armed Armenian aggression, 20% of Azerbaijani territories, including Nagorno-Karabakh region and 7 neighboring regions, were occupied and over 1 million Azerbaijanis became internally displaced people due to ethnic cleansing policy by Armenia in these territories.

The illegal character of this armed occupation of Azerbaijani territories was confirmed in the resolutions and documents of the UN Security Council and its General Assembly, PACE, European Parliament, OSCE, and other international organizations, demanding immediate and unconditional end of occupation. PACE Resolution 1416 (2005) once again reiterates that “the occupation of foreign territory by a member state constitutes a grave violation of that state’s obligations as a member of the Council of Europe”, and demanded unconditional release of the occupied territories. Nevertheless, Armenia ignores the demands of the resolutions and documents of international organizations, as well as PACE resolution regarding the unconditional release of Azerbaijani territories, and proved that it insists on keeping the territories of neighbor Azerbaijan under occupation: “Therefore, I prepared a motion for resolution demanding the application of sanctions against Armenian delegation for its continuous armed occupation of Azerbaijani territories. The motion for resolution cited PACE Resolution 1990 (2014) dated April 10, 2014 on the application of sanctions against Russian delegation, and urged the Assembly to adopt the same sanctions against Armenian delegation in PACE, because of respect for one single standard in PACE, until the end of illegal occupation of Azerbaijani territories”.

The motion was signed by 58 Members of Parliament representing 14 PACE member states and sent to PACE Secretariat by e-mail on June 7. The Secretariat confirmed the receipt of electron signatures on June 10. According to Rules of Procedure, the motion for resolution will be submitted to the Secretary with original 58 signatures on June 17: “Furthermore, surely, PACE Secretary General Mr. Sawicki will not demonstrate discrimination in this issue put into discussion regarding the occupation of Azerbaijani territories. I hope that PACE leadership, as well as Mr. Sawicki will demonstrate objective position regarding the submitted motion for resolution co-signed by 58 PACE members representing 14 countries, taking into consideration the fact of occupation of Azerbaijani territories for 22 years, the resolutions adopted on this issue by international organizations, as well as the application of sanctions against Russian delegation due to its uniting of Crimeria to itself. According to the Rules of Procedure, the motion is referred to Political Committee or Monitoring Committee for appointing a rapporteur after being discussed at the meetings of Presidential Committee and Bureau. I believe that Mr. Sawicki will realize that it is important to discuss this document co-signed by 58 MPs during the meetings of Presidential Committee and Bureau, and bring the implementation of existing procedures to the attention of PACE. Taking this opportunity, I would like to express my gratitude to PACE members, who signed the motion for resolution submitted under my authorship. Furthermore, I call on to prevent injustice towards excluding the motion for resolution demanding the application of sanctions against Armenian delegation for its continuous armed occupation of Azerbaijani territories from discussions, and preference of corporate interests of certain forces to the principles of Council of Europe”.