Agshin Mehdiyev: "Council of Europe understands Azerbaijan's non-compliance with the commitments"

As APA reports, calling the Council of Europe a great school of democracy, A.Mehdiyev also touched the commitments that Azerbaijan had undertaken before the organization.

"Azerbaijan has not adopted a law "On alternative service" so far and we have not joined several laws and conventions, as well. It has some objective reasons. The law "On alternative service" cannot be adopted until Armenia stops its aggression against Azerbaijan. I think, it will also be difficult to join the normative act on national minorities until Nagorno Karabakh conflict is resolved. As the issues on national minorities and religious tolerance are in right order in Azerbaijan the Council of Europe treats Azerbaijan's non-compliance with these commitments in understanding. Council of Europe knows that, the fulfillment of the commitments is delayed due to objective reasons", A.Mehdiyev claimed.

Agshin Mehdiyev also stated that Azerbaijan planned to get the status of post-monitoring country in Council of Europe: "The newly independent Baltic and Balkan States have such status, all of the South Caucasus countries are under monitoring".

Responding to the question "Will Azerbaijan continue co-operating with the Venice Commission?" A.Mehdiyev stated that the co-operation's on: "Venice Commission expresses its opinion by different laws and normative acts. The Election Code is in permanent development, it is improved. I have no doubt that, Azerbaijan will further co-operate with Venice Commission in different spheres, including the issues on the election legislation".

A.Mehdiyev also touched on the alleged secret detentions of Central Interlignece Agency (CIA) of the US in Europe. He stated that Azerbaijan was not among these countries and it had not been applied for this matter by the Council of Europe. Stating that there were no secret detentions in Azerbaijan, the Ambassador said that if there was such appeal, the government of Azerbaijan would investigate the case and give relevant response.

Azerbaijan became the member of the Council of Europe on January 25, 2001.