Strasbourg, 24/06/2014 (Agence Europe) - An art and history exhibition in the Council of Europe, flags carefully ironed and draped: Ilham Aliyev, president of Azerbaijan, arrived in Strasbourg for a very formal visit, carefully arranged by the country's delegation to mark the start of its six months at the helm of the Council of Europe Committee of Ministers.
There was little of this pomp and ceremony in the city itself. The Azeri flag was flying in Broglie Square, but the trams were not draped in the Azeri colours as happens usually for the change of presidency, and the usual leaflet of events connected with the event had not been printed.
These were symbolic moves decided upon last month after a clash between Azerbaijan and the Council of Europe. At the last minute, Azerbaijan suspended the visa of the head of the Socialist delegation to the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly, René Rouquet, who was due to travel to the Azeri capital, Baku, for a meeting. The reason for withdrawing his visa was that, shortly beforehand, Rouquet had travelled to the Upper Karabakh enclave that Armenia and Azerbaijan are squabbling over, thus breaking an Azeri law. But he is protected by the Paris protocol, which guarantees free movement in the 47 Council of Europe member states (including Armenia) for any member of the Parliamentary Assembly. The Paris protocol is an international treaty above any national laws, stated Luxembourg liberal Anne Brasseur, the Parliamentary Assembly speaker, pointing out that the Council of Europe therefore issued sanctions against Azerbaijan by suspending for two years the committee meetings that were scheduled to take place in Baku.
A highly critical report on Azerbaijan was published in April 2014 by Council of Europe Human Rights Commissioner Nils Muiznieks, and the Azeri chairmanship has begun on an awkward footing. There was no sign of this in the demeanour of President Aliyev, whose arrival at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg on Tuesday 24 June was greeted by a protest rally organised by Reporters Sans Frontières and the Club de la Presse Strasbourg-Europe demanding greater freedom of speech in Azerbaijan.
Aliyev said that his country had made great economic and political progress over the past decade and played an important role in dialogue between Christians and Muslims. He said that the accusations by the NGOs were nothing but lies and deliberate provocations generated by external forces but, “for geopolitical reasons”, refused to comment on what these external forces were exactly.
Brasseur said that the president had given the same answer when she had asked him about it in private. She said that, when she told him that she was planning to travel to Baku to visit Ilgar Mammadov, Director of the Council of Europe's School of Political Studies in Baku, who is also leader of the REAL opposition movement and was a candidate in the presidential elections of 2013 and who has been in prison since February 2013, Aliyev said she would very soon have the opportunity to do so because there was nothing to hide. The European Parliament has issued a resolution about Mammadov's detention, calling for the opposition leader to be released from prison and for Azerbaijan to be taken to the European Court of Human Rights. The matter was not referred to by Ilham Aliyev during his speech to the Parliamentary Assembly. He simply repeated a number of times that there were no political prisoners in Azerbaijan.
Brasseur was surprised at this comment because human rights organisations say the opposite. She said that things are all black for one side and all white for the other, but there is usually a grey area in the middle. She said that Azerbaijan's chairing of the Committee of Ministers should be seen as an opportunity for the country to speed up its process of reform. She said the Azeri president and foreign minister had been handed the list of Council of Europe conventions that the country has not yet adopted. They said they would speed up the process. Brasseur said one had to wait and see, adding that the Council of Europe was planning to draw clear attention to Azerbaijan's human rights record.
One of the things that surprises Brasseur the most since she became Parliamentary Assembly speaker in January is that there are no women in the Azeri delegation. She said it was clear that work still needed to be done on gender equality and to change mentalities. She added that it was the Council of Europe's job to help them with that by focussing on values without having to take account of economic imperatives. (VL)