AZERBAIJANI, ARMENIAN MPS MEET AT EUROPEAN ASSEMBLY
news.az
April 29 2010
Azerbaijan
Samad Seyidov The heads of the Azerbaijani and Armenian delegations
to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) have
met in Strasbourg.
The delegations met yesterday on the sidelines of the PACE spring
session. The PACE president, Turkish MP Mevlut Cavusoglu, also attended
the meeting, the head of the Azerbaijani delegation, Samad Seyidov
told journalists.
‘I met the head of the Armenian delegation to PACE and we had an
exchange of views. Consideration of Nagorno-Karabakh in the Council
of Europe is very important. As the spring session wrapped up, we
decided to meet again at the June session. We keep on working and our
next meeting will have a broader format. The opposition members in
the Azerbaijani and Armenian delegations to PACE will attend the next
meeting as well. I think this is a very important achievement and we’ll
do our utmost to keep up this kind of discussion with the involvement
of the PACE president. Exchanges of views and consultations must
be held and continued. The current chairman of PACE, the assembly’s
former secretary general, Mateo Sorinas Balfego, and other officials
took part in today’s meeting,’ Samad Seyidov said.
As for restoration of the PACE subcommittee on Nagorno-Karabakh, Samad
Seyidov said that the process had just started and would continue. ‘As
I noted before, the beginning and continuation of the meeting in a
broader format shows that the process is ongoing.’
The PACE subcommittee on Nagorno-Karabakh stopped work after the
death of its chairman, Lord Russell-Johnston, in July 2008.
The head of the Armenian delegation to PACE commented yesterday that
the Karabakh subcommittee was still being formed.
‘Consultations are under way on the formation of the PACE subcommittee
on Nagorno-Karabakh. The process is ongoing. As for the committee
chairman, we will deal with the issue later, after we have agreed
on further cooperation,’ David Harutyunyan told NEWS.am, commenting
on PACE President Mevlut Cavusoglu’s declared intention to chair
the subcommittee.
Harutyunyan said that Micheline Calmy-Rey, federal councillor and
head of the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, and PACE
Secretary General Thorbjorn Jagland had both said clearly in their
speeches that the OSCE Minsk Group remained the body involved in
mediation on Karabakh. ‘We must not replace this process with any
simultaneous process, and PACE must be very cautious not to create
the impression of a simultaneous process,’ Harutyunyan said.
Commenting on a statement issued by 20 PACE members opposing the
parliamentary elections in Nagorno-Karabakh, Harutyunyan said:
‘The declaration has to do only with the PACE members that made it.
Elections in Nagorno-Karabakh are a democratic procedure. The
Nagorno-Karabakh people is exercising its democratic right.’