PACE SHOULD NOT TURN BLIND EYE TO RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN ARMENIA: HEAD OF DELEGATION

Trend News Agency
April 17 2008
Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan, Baku, 17 April / corr. TrendNews A. Maharramli, I. Alizade/
The Parliament Assembly of Council of Europe (PACE0 should pay
attention to the recent developments in Armenia and should not turn a
blind eye to them. "If PACE closely follows the events in Azerbaijan
and Georgia, it should also closely follow the recent developments
in other South Caucasus country – Armenia," said Samad Sayidov, the
head of Azerbaijani delegation during the urgent discussions over
presidential elections in Armenia held within the PACE session in
17 April.

On 19 Feb, presidential elections were held in Armenia. The Central
Election Commission said that Serj Sarkisyan, the former premier and
a candidate from the government won the elections by gaining 52.2%
of votes. The supporters of former president Levon Ter-Petrosyan, a
key candidate from the opposition, did not accept the election outcome
and staged uninterrupted demonstrations. The peaceful demonstrations
were dispersed by the law enforcement agencies at night from 1 to
2 March resulting in death of 9 people and hundreds of people being
wounded and arrested.

"The current report was more balanced than the one introduced in the
first day. Armenia is required to conduct independent investigation.

If we approach the situation mildly, then how can we make comparisons
with other countries? I am against the statement that Armenia should
not be compared with other countries," Seyidov added.

Gultakin Hajiyeva, the member of Azerbaijani delegation said that the
delegations representing the country, who committed violations during
the elections, are usually deprived of the right to vote. "As to the
depriving Armenian delegation of this right for the elections that
were accompanied with brutality, there has not been any such proposal
made for this as yet. How can the undemocratic presidential elections
resulting in mass human victims meet Council of Europe standards?

Some people want to appoint a reporter for Azerbaijan because of 5-10
political prisoners in the country. But no one is going to speak about
appointing a reporter for more than 100 arrested members of party,
former MPs and other political figures in Armenia," she said.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress