Azer Tag, Azerbaijan State Info Agency
June 24 2004

AZERBAIJANI DEPUTY URGES COMMITTEE OF MINISTERS TO BE ACTIVE
[June 24, 2004, 20:20:13]

Newly appointed chairman of the COE Committee of Ministers, Foreign
Minister of Norway Jan Petersen delivered a summary report on the
PACE session, June 22. According to existing rules, following the
summary report chairman of the Committee of Ministers is questioned.
These questions are presented to the secretariat for a day and then
published. In the course of the session, following chairman’s answer
deputy who asked the first question is enabled to question once more.

18 European deputies questioned J. Peterson this time. The first
question was asked by Azerbaijani deputy Rafael Huseynov. The
question says: how may the contribution of the Council of Europe to
the resolution of conflicts be evaluated? What steps can be taken to
settle conflicts existing in the Caucasus region?

Mr. Jan Petersen stressed in responce that the Caucasian region is
always in the focus of attention of the Council of Europe and noted
that he would handle problems of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia and
visit the region.

Taking the opportunity, the Azerbaijani deputy drew the Chairman’s
attention to Armenia’s aggression against Azerbaijan. R. Huseynov
noted that whenever the issue of COE’s active participation in the
resolution of the conflict is raised, it points to lack of mandate to
settle the conflict since the OSCE Minsk Group is directly involved
in the issue. When asked about the approach and efforts towards
information exchange between COE and OSCE, in particular, Minsk
Group, and conflict resolution J. Petersen stated that he would do
his best for the settlement of the conflict.