Ago Group to take interest in preparations for municipal elections in Azerbaijan

APA: You are going to visit the South Caucasus on November 19-26. What are priorities of your visit to Azerbaijan?

Christoph Poirel: Ago Group aims to value fulfillment of Azerbaijan’s commitments taken while it became Council of Europe member and to review situation. We will meet mostly with the government officials during the visit. We would like to learn what commitments were fulfilled and what fields need additional initiatives.

I mean formal commitments about the ethnic minorities and law on alternative military service, which were not fulfilled yet.

Azerbaijan didn’t ratify yet the European Charter about the Languages of Regional and Ethnic Minorities. We will discuss mostly such kind of issues. We will also take an interest in judiciary and penitentiary reforms, actions taken for improvement of these systems, and commitments about the structure issues such as independence of court system.

The group will also focus on the issue of freedom of speech taken into consideration the arrest of young bloggers and statement by the Council of Europe Secretary General.

Azerbaijan, as other members of the Council of Europe, takes commitments to the organization in the field of human rights. For example, recent amendments to the law on religious organizations and general issues of human right protection will also be in the focus of attention.

Q: Will you discuss the December municipal elections?

A: Of course, the issue of elections will also be on our agenda. Council of Europe always closely watches the elections. Ago Group will also take an interest in preparation for the December 23 municipal elections and we will closely follow opinion of the pre-election mission of the Council of Europe Congress of Regional and Local Authorities, as well as its observing mission.

We will also take an interest in preparation for the 2010 elections. We were discussing the issues of improvement of Electoral Code and other related issues during our early visits to Azerbaijan too. There are some recommendations by Venice Commission to improve the Electoral Code. The Council of Europe intends to assist preparation process for parliamentary elections in November, 2010. We will talk about that with the Azerbaijani officials.

Q: Does Council of Europe keep fulfillment of Azerbaijan’s commitments in the focus of its attention?

A: We will mention all spheres during the visit. Last year we focused only on the situation of press. Earlier we discussed the court system. This year we will value not just one issue, but all priorities.

Q: The Council of Europe currently conducts special monitoring on Azerbaijan and Armenia together with PACE and Committee of Ministers. How long it intends to work?

A: It is clear that Ago Group will not work until uncertain time. This question is asked frequently and the Committee of Ministers didn’t make yet any decision on that because such decision is only the Committee’s authority.

I can’t say how long our monitoring will last. I consider that the Committee of Ministers will decide on further activity of Ago Group after the visiting the region. After that the Committee of Ministers will decide on Ago Group’s activity and ending its monitoring. We are not in that phase yet.

/APA/