AZERBAIJAN’S COMMITMENTS TO PACE DISCUSSED IN PACE MONITORING COMMITTEE

Trend News Agency, Azerbaijan
March 28 2007

Azerbaijan, Baku/ Trend corr. I. Alizadeh / Samad Seyyidov, the Head
of the Azerbaijani Parliamentary Delegation to PACE, has told Trend
that the report on Azerbaijan’s fulfilling its commitments to PACE
has been discussed during the meeting of the PACE (Parliamentary
Assembly of Council of Europe) in Strasburg today.

He noted that the discussions, which have been held in the Monitoring
Committee, had been very fruitful.

"We expected that these discussions would be held fruitfully, and it
passed as we had expected. During the meeting of the PACE Monitoring
Committee, the report about Azerbaijan’s commitments to PACE, prepared
by the PACE Co-Rapporteurs for Azerbaijan was discussed.

Andreas Herkel, the Co-Rapporteur for Azerbaijan, also gave a speech
during the meeting. The other Co-Rapporteur, Tony Lloyd, sent a letter,
since he was not able to participate at the meeting. His letter
was read to the participants. Therefore, it was a very important
issue. Those who gave their speeches during the meeting, highly
appreciated the level of Azerbaijan’s fulfilling its commitments to
the Council of Europe," added Mr. Seyyidov.

He noted that after the discussions, the participants made a decision
to discuss another report concerning our country’s fulfilling its
commitments to PACE, but with taking into consideration proposals put
forward by the Azerbaijani party, particularly those ones connected
with the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict during the forthcoming spring
session to be held in April.

Mr. Seyyidov said that the report prepared by the Co-Rapporteurs might
be considered as a satisfactory one for Azerbaijan. "The report may
be subjected to constructive criticism. But, on the whole, we have
been satisfied with this document," he said.

The Head of the Azerbaijani Parliamentary Delegation to PACE also added
that the last incident happened in the Azerbaijani Parliament of the
Milli Majlis , as well as the detention of a Member of the Azerbaijani
Parliament, Husseyn Abdullayev had not been included into the report,
which had been discussed by the PACE Monitoring Committee.