"Even if Azerbaijan were to leave the Council of Europe entirely, almost no one in the country would notice it," President Ilham Aliyev said at the 4th Shusha Global Media Forum, APA reports.
"Until September 2023, Azerbaijan had never faced any sanctions in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. It was only after September 2023, when we exercised our legitimate right of self-defense and liberated our territory from the remnants of separatists, that the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe decided to punish Azerbaijan. In January 2024, the Assembly put the credentials of the Azerbaijani delegation to a vote and stripped it of its voting rights.
This was allegedly related to human rights issues. However, if that had really been the reason, such a step would probably have been taken much earlier. It was simply a punishment for restoring our sovereignty," the head of state said.
The President noted that after that, the Azerbaijani delegation made the right decision by suspending its participation in the Assembly's sessions.
"Because if we do not have voting rights, what is the point of being there? By the way, since then, we have also not participated in the election of judges to the European Court of Human Rights.
That is why Azerbaijan does not recognize the decisions of that court, because we did not participate in the vote determining who those judges would be. We have been subjected to discrimination for more than two years.
I can say openly that within the government we seriously discussed not only freezing our activities in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, but also leaving the Council of Europe altogether.
However, the Secretary General of the Council of Europe, Alain Berset, appealed to me not to do so and asked us to give an opportunity to improve the situation. I therefore decided to postpone that decision for the time being. Unfortunately, since then there has been no progress.
On the contrary, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has put forward completely unacceptable and ultimatum-like demands against Azerbaijan. We were not the ones who damaged the relationship—they were.
Without any legal basis, they deprived us of our voting rights. Therefore, the necessary step is to first restore the voting rights of the Azerbaijani delegation. After that, our delegation will return to the Assembly. That is how the issue should be resolved, not the other way around.
We have taken no wrongful steps against them. They made the unfair decision. Therefore, they must take the step back and have the courage to admit that they made a major mistake.
I have expressed my views on this issue many times. Even if Azerbaijan were to leave the Council of Europe entirely, almost no one in the country would notice it. In other words, whether we are there or not does not make any serious difference domestically.
Of course, it is better to have normal relations with these institutions rather than confrontation. We are not seeking confrontation. Especially considering that not only the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, but also the European Parliament regularly launches groundless attacks against Azerbaijan.
I believe this has become a kind of obsession with Azerbaijan. Over the past five years, the European Parliament has adopted 13 resolutions against Azerbaijan. None of them matters to us or has any impact on the country.
Nevertheless, normal relations with these institutions are, of course, preferable to confrontation. But I emphasize once again that we did not create this situation.
Azerbaijan voluntarily joined the Council of Europe in 2001. At that time, both the organization and Europe as a whole were different from what they are today. We joined that Europe with certain hopes and expectations. We hoped that membership would help resolve the Karabakh conflict and restore our sovereignty.
We want the normalization of relations. But they must take the first step," the head of state noted.
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