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APA Director General meets with Deputy Head of CE Directorate of Communication and spokesperson for European Court

29 May 2009 14:52 (UTC +04:00)

Strasbourg. Fuad Gulubayli â€“ APA. Director General of Azeri-Press Agency (APA) Vusala Mahirgizi continues holding meetings in the Council of Europe. APAâ€™s Europe bureau reports that Vusala Mahirgizi met with Deputy Head of the CE Directorate of Communication Alun Drake today. They discussed the state of media in Azerbaijan, relations between the Council of Europe and Azerbaijani media. Alun Drake noted that freedom of media and expression, human rights and state of democracy were main factors in the whole world. Drake said he was aware of the state of media in Azerbaijan and regarded opening of APAâ€™s office in the Council of Europe as an important event.
â€œAs Azerbaijan is an important country in the South Caucasus and the entire CIS, we chose Azerbaijan among the candidates. Of course APAâ€™s achievements â€“ news articles in several languages, video news and other factors played important role in this choice,â€ he said.
Alun Drake regarded agreement on the free video-photo exchange with APA as a positive event.

Vusala Mahirgizi said they were interested in the cooperation with the CE structures, as well as Directorate of Communication and underlined the importance of increasing efforts in this direction.

Vusala Mahirgizi also met with spokesperson for the European Court of Human Rights Stefano Piedimonte. Piedimonte appreciated opening of APAâ€™s office in the Council of Europe and said it was important in terms of close cooperation with media. Stefano Piedimonte said there was a need to explain the essence of the European Court of Human Rights and added that it had just been perceived in Western Europe.
â€œThere is a need to raise awareness concerning the essence of the European Court. We also intend to cooperate with APAâ€™s office in the Council of Europe to raise awareness in this field in Azerbaijan. The European Court plans to switch to new principle of working, it also includes strengthening the relations with media. We are also interested in cooperating with APA, as this agency spreads the decision of the Council of Europe without additional comments, in accordance with the law,â€ he said.

Vusala Mahirgizi said APA attached great importance to the cooperation with the European Court of Human Rights and said the agency was ready to do its best toraise awareness concerning the essence of the court.

Vusala Mahirgizi will meet with head of Azerbaijani House in Strasbourg Mustafa Alinca today.

APA is the first and the only agency from the CIS that has office in the Council of Europe. 13 world-famous media organizations such as Turkey-based NTV channel, Reuters, Agence France-Presse have offices in the Council of Europe, APA is one of them.