AZG Armenian Daily #117, 25/06/2005
Armenia-CE
ARMENIAN REFERENDUM AND AZERBAIJANI ELECTIONS IN THE LIMELIGHT OF COUNCIL OF
EUROPE
Diego Freitas do Amaral, chairman of committee of ministers of the Council
of Europe and foreign minister of Portugal, stated that the CE will pay
special attention to Armenia and Azerbaijan in coming months. According to
Mediamax agency, do Amaral reminded in his speech at the PACE session that
the documents adopted in Warsaw are to delineate CE’s further actions.
“Firstly, we have to make sure that the participating states match CE’s
standards of democracy, human rights and the rule of law. For that reason
we’ll take the South Caucasian region in our limelight for the coming months
considering important developments connected with referendum on constitution
in Armenia and parliamentary elections in Azerbaijan in November”, he said.
Ekho newspaper of Baku informed that the June 22 session of PACE discussed 2
issues concerning Azerbaijan: functioning of democratic institutions and the
issue of political prisoners. A member of the PACE Monitoring Committee
Andreas Gross said that there is a group of people within the Azerbaijani
authorities that tries to stand against reforms. “On the threshold of
parliamentary elections we need to bring change into the situation otherwise
Azerbaijan will appear in dangerous position. Azeri deputies do nor agree
with us but the Azeri people does agree”, Gross said. PACE will not confirm
Azeri delegation’s mandate unless elections are just.
The US Congress has also discussed the issue of free elections in
Azerbaijan. The House of Representatives discussed a draft demanding “free
and just elections in Azerbaijan”. The draft reads, “The House of
Representatives calls on Azerbaijani authorities to guarantee complete
participation of oppositional parties including opposition members who were
arrested during the period prior to the elections of 2005”.