KARABAKH KEY TOPIC IN EUROPEAN ASSEMBLY PRESIDENT’S BAKU TALKS
news.az
April 15 2010
Azerbaijan
Mevlut Cavusoglu Mevlut Cavusoglu, president of the Parliamentary
Assembly of the Council of Europe, has discussed the Karabakh conflict
with Azerbaijani leaders.
Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov received Cavusoglu in Baku
yesterday, the ministry’s press service reported.
The minister said Azerbaijan was closely cooperating with PACE in a
number of areas.
Briefing Cavusoglu on the settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijani
conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, Elmar Mammadyarov said that the
conflict could be solved only within the framework of Azerbaijan’s
territorial integrity. The minister said international attention
towards Karabakh should be increased and commented on the efforts of
PACE in this regard.
Mevlut Cavusoglu said PACE welcomed the democratization process in
Azerbaijan and would continue to support it. He noted Resolution 1416
on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict adopted by PACE on 25 January 2005,
and described the work of the subcommittee on Nagorno-Karabakh as an
urgent issue in the PACE political committee. He said the subcommittee
was expected to resume work soon and expressed hope that it would
have a positive influence on the settlement of the conflict.
The PACE subcommittee on Nagorno-Karabakh stopped work after the
death of its chairman, Lord Russell-Johnston, in July 2008.
Cavusoglu elaborated further on the plans to the revive the Karabakh
subcommittee at a press conference yesterday. ‘As the Council of
Europe, we have moved forward to establish the subcommittee at the
Parliamentary Assembly in order to contribute to this peace process.
We will establish this committee soon and I will head the committee,’
he said.
The PACE president’s comments on the Karabakh subcommittee were not
welcomed in Armenia. MP Naira Zohrabyan, a member of the Armenian
delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe,
said: ‘I can certainly catch the implication of his aspiration,
introduced under pressure from the Azerbaijani lobby. He is seeking to
shift the Karabakh issue from the OSCE Minsk Group to PACE. However,
why should the issue be discussed in the Council of Europe, when to
date the organization has paid almost no attention to human rights
or elections in Nagorno-Karabakh?’
Zohrabyan recalled that Cavusoglu had talked about reviving the
Karabakh subcommittee during the January session of PACE.
She said that the PACE president had pledged to discuss the issue
with the heads of the Armenian and Azerbaijani delegations during the
April session. She said that the issue should be discussed with all
delegation members as she personally had a lot to say on the subject.
Zohrabyan said that Cavusoglu would probably visit Armenia after the
April session, which will be held on 26-30 April.
Later in the day Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev received Mevlut
Cavusoglu. He congratulated him on his election as president of the
Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, describing it as
a fair decision. Aliyev hoped that PACE would meet its obligations
during Mevlut Cavusoglu’s presidency.
Ilham Aliyev welcomed the fact that one of Cavusoglu’s first
visits in his capacity as president was to Azerbaijan. He expressed
confidence that the visit would contribute to cooperation between
the Parliamentary Assembly and Azerbaijan.
Mevlut Cavusoglu thanked President Aliyev for his support for his
election as PACE president. He said that the Turkish and Azerbaijani
delegations to PACE had been working well together for many years.
They also exchanged views on the present state and prospects for
cooperation between Azerbaijan and PACE.