Elkhan Suleymanov
Member
of Azerbaijani Delegation to PACE
 
The draft report on the functioning of democratic institutions in
Azerbaijan prepared by co-rapporteurs Mr. Pedro Agramunt and Mr. Tadeusz
Iwinski was discussed and adopted during PACE’s summer session on June 23,
2015. The discussion were very tense. As expected, main debates focused on the
paragraph regarding Nagorno Karabakh and other occupied territories of
Azerbaijan in draft resolution of the report. The debates on this issue, which
reminded a “war of positions”, exposed anti-Azerbaijani forces and PACE as a
political institution. The Assembly replaced the words “is fully informed about
the occupation of Nagorno Karabakh and other seven provinces of Azerbaijan by
Armenia”  in the 1st  paragraph of the report with “Nagorno
Karabakh conflict”, the formulation they always use. All Europe and power
centers mobilized all their resources to make this amendment and used all their
power against just demands of Azerbaijan and co-rapporteurs. This was expected.
Thus, the Assembly, messenger of rule of law and democracy, exposed its
inactivity and admitted that it turns a blind eye to the fact of the occupation
of Azerbaijani territories, by expressing its awareness about the occupation of
the member state by the other member state for 23 years and such deeptragedy of
Azerbaijani people.
 
It should be noted that during the presentation of the draft report
in Monitoring Committee in May of this year, we achieved that the fact of the
occupation of Azerbaijani territories was included in the 1st
paragraph of the draft report as “the occupation of Nagorno Karabakh and seven
provinces of Azerbaijan by Armenia” after my fierce speech. I also expressed our
deep regret to the fact that despite the occupation of Azerbaijani territories
by Armenia over 23 years, the Council of Europe limited itself only stating
that it was “fully informed” about it.
 
Nevertheless, Armenian lobby and anti-Azerbaijani forces couldn’t
admit the recognition of Armenia as an aggressor, thus, all Armenian lobby and
anti-Azerbaijani forces started to deal with this issue and organize various
attacks against Azerbaijan since May 21, the date of placement of the draft
report on CoE website. The result was noted during the plenary session when
almost none of PACE members did voice the Armenian occupation. Even
anti-Azerbaijani forces, particularly President Ms. Ann Brasseur and Secretary
General Mr. Sawicki didn’t even refrain from making pressure on co-rapporteurs
Mr. Agramunt and Mr. Iwinski.
 
It should also be noted that leading power centers stirred up their anti-Azerbaijani
campaign after the meeting of Monitoring Committee on May 28, when we achieved
that the words “the occupation of Nagorno Karabakh and seven provinces of
Azerbaijan by Armenia” remain in the 1st paragraph of the draft
resolution. They instructed their sattellites in various international
intergovernmental institutions and non-governmental organizations to
simultaneously intensify their anti-Azerbaijani campaign in different
directions. As a result of this instruction by power centers, anti-Azerbaijani
forces and multiple international institutions, including the Human Rights House
Network consisting of 90 human rights organizations from 18 human rights houses
in 13 countries of Eastern and Western Europe, Caucasus and Balkans, launched
systemic attacks against Azerbaijan. They obviusly refused to include the paragraph
regarding the occupation in the report on the functioning of democratic
institutions. They interfered in the affairs of court and sovereign country in
contradiction with the principle of rule of law and suggested to add
duplicating paragraphs on human rights. And this showed that they were mobilized
to put pressure on Azerbaijan. Such bias was obviously reflected in repeated
and biased amendments and proposals with the same content.
 
The upcoming parliamentary elections in Azerbaijan in 2015 were targeted
as the second main direction of the strategy by anti-Azerbaijani forces. For
this purpose, they attempted to add the following paragraph to the report: “Fully
cooperate with ODIHR. Considering this cooperation, the Assembly will decide on
the observation mission for the upcoming elections.”
 
The main essence of this addition by anti-Azerbaijani forces was to
achieve that PACE withdraws its monitoring mission in October if OSCE/ODIHR is
not invited to monitor the upcoming parliamentary elections in Azerbaijan in
2015. Interestingly, even contradicting proposals were voiced during speeches.
 
One of them was to
withdraw PACE observation mission if ODIHR isn’t invited to the elections, on
the contrary, the other one meant to increase PACE observation mission staff
twice.
 
In fact, the proposal
regarding ODIHR in spite of being controversial, was very ridiculous. However,
Azerbaijan doesn’t have any obligation before this or other organisations to
invite election  observation mission. The
Azerbaijani Government voluntarily invites observation missions to election,
and such kind of invitation reflects the goodwill of the Azerbaijani
authorities. Thus, anti-Azerbaijani forces couldn’t achieve their goal.
According to CoE’s committment before Azerbaijan, it should monitor elections.
Therefore, their attempts to threaten our country in such a way are in vain.
 
However, the main
purpose of those, who tabled this proposal, was to change the first paragraph
of the draft report and suppress the occupation fact of Nagorno-Karabakh and 7
other provinces. The intention to table various amendments with repetitions was
to achieve their goal if the another one was denied.
 
So, as a result of
strong influence of some European politicians and powerful states, which caused
disaster in Ukraine, on the Ukrainian authorities, Ukrainian MPs proposed the draft
resolution, which didn’t not making the occupation of Azerbaijani territories similar
to that in Ukraine.
 
Despite the instructions by their countries, PACE members
denied 3 of them and accepted the last one. Surprisingly, the new decision of
the European Court of Human Rights on “the case of Chiragov and
others” was not considered like this. Thus, the Court in its decision
stresses that Armenia has an effective control over Nagorno-Karabakh and
surrounding provinces and states that due to the human rights violations in
Nagorno-Karabakh and 7 surrounding provinces, internationally-legal
responsibility falls on Armenia. I repeatedly stressed that not only
Nagorno-Karabakh, but also 7 surrounding provinces were occupied, but they
didn’t even want to hear it.
 
To achieve her
malicious intentions, PACE President Anne Brasseur several times set the voting on that paragraph with various pretexts. Even after the voting, MPs in the lobbies
didn’t hide their suspicions that this amendment was accepted with 10 votes.
 
I should note that
according to rules of procedure of PACE, co-rapporteurs can express their views on the
amendments during the debates. For instance, a few years ago during the debates
on Strasser’s well-known report, he was expressing his views on the amendments.
However, Ms. Anne Brasseur didn’t allow the rapporteurs to speak until the end
of debates on the amendments to the 1st paragraph, thus, roughly
violating the rules of procedure of PACE.
 
While the rapporteurs
protested to that, Ms. Anne Brasseur told them that they don’t have the right to protest, and Secretary
General Sawicki confirmed her decision. When Mr. Agustin Conde, PACE member
from Spain, opposed the decision, extensively explaining the requirements of
the rules of procedure, only then, Ms. Anne Brasseur allowed the co-rapporteurs
to speak. But it was too late; Sawicki’s mission of Armenian defense had
already ended.
 
I declare to the
people of Azerbaijan that Europe
doesn’t consider the fact of the occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh and 7
surrounding provinces of Azerbaijan, and their attitude is nothing but to deceive
the world and the Azerbaijani community. It is naive to trust Europe and
international organizations or demand their support regarding the liberation of
Azerbaijani territories occupied for 23 years.
 
Finally, I
would like to note that Armenia refused to cooperate with Mr. Robert Walter,
rapporteur of PACE Committee on Political Affairs on the “Escalation of tension
in Nagorno-Karabakh and the other occupied territories” and didn’t let him
visit Armenia within his mandate. Even though, despite the attempts of CoE leadership
and Armenian authority to hide the occupation, they were obliged to invite Mr.
Robert Walter as a rapporteur within his mandate on June 23. It is expected
that during the session, PACE Committee on Social Affairs will decide on the
next visit of Milica Markovic, rapporteur on Sarsang reservoir, which is under
occupation, to Azerbaijan and Armenia.
 
Finally, I would like once again to stress that the purpose of pressures
with various pretexts against our country in PACE is to hide the occupation by
Armenia and to achieve to get the fact of occupation be forgotten. However, we
should strongly continue our struggle against these malicious forces.