Azeri-Press news agency (APA), Azerbaijan
October 5, 2017 Thursday


President Ilham Aliyev: "If Azerbaijan leaves the Council of Europe,
nothing will change in our life"


"The issue of secession from the Council of Europe was touched upon
here. You are well acquainted with our media, because I do not have
information that this or that official Azerbaijani person expressed
such an opinion. However, the media are free and can write whatever
they want. We, of course, react to the mood of the public, and any
government, first of all, must take public opinion into account.
Unfortunately, public opinion related to the Council of Europe is not
so positive," said Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyevat a meeting with
a delegation of the Political and Security Committee of the Council of
the European Union.

The Head of State noted that there are several reasons for this:
"Firstly, when we joined this organization, our expectations were
related to the fact that it will help us in the settlement of the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. However, the Council of Europe did not
succeed in this matter, this case did not work, and it will not work.
Secondly, at the beginning of our membership I was the first head of
our delegation. At that time, I was a member of the Azerbaijani
parliament and in 2001-2003 led the Azerbaijani delegation to the
Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. That is, I know what
this organization is and how it relates to Azerbaijan. The attitude
was extremely negative. We joined this organization on the same day as
Armenia and compared the extremely negative attitude towards
Azerbaijan with a positive attitude towards Armenia. Armenia, where
elections are constantly falsified, kill politicians in the
parliament, where terrorism can be said to have been adopted at the
level of official policy, which occupied the territory of another
state and caused suffering to millions of people as a result of war
crimes, was always cared for by lobby groups in PACE, but Azerbaijan
was constantly attacked. "