Azerbaijan demands Armenia’s exclusion from Council of Europe
Oct 5 2004
BAKU. Oct 5 (Interfax) – Azerbaijan has sent a letter to the Council
of Europe demanding that Armenia be expelled from this organization.
“The document that contains the demand to exclude Armenia from the
Council of Europe has already received the status of an official PACE
document. It will be distributed among PACE countries’ representatives
on Tuesday and will be discussed at a session of the Council of Europe
ministers’ cabinet in the near future,” a representatives of
Azerbaijan’s delegation at the Strasbourg PACE session, Rafael
Guseinov, told Interfax.
“This demand is motivated by the fact that Armenia has repeatedly
violated the basic principles of the Council of Europe. Namely,
Armenia continues the occupation of 20% of Azerbaijan’s territory,
Azerbaijan being another Council of Europe country,” Guseinov said.
Baku lost control over Nagorno-Karabakh in the course of a bloody
conflict with Armenia in the 1990s.
The UN Security Council has repeatedly condemned the occupation of
Azerbaijani territory and demanded that Armenian military units be
withdrawn from it. The OSCE Minsk Group, which includes
representatives of Russia, France, and the United States, is mediating
the conflict.