EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Catherine Ashton and EU Commissioner on good neighborhood Stefan Fule on Saturday expressed concern over the arrest in Azerbaijan of the deputy head of the party "Musavat" Tofig Yagublu and leader of the "Republican Alternative" Ilgar Mamedov, representing the opposition movement in the country, Interfax reported.
The senior representatives of the EU urged the Azerbaijani authorities to "provide prompt, fair, transparent and independent investigation into the allegations" and "refrain from further obstructing journalists and political activists seeking to exercise their fundamental rights and freedoms."
Ashton and Fule called on Baku to review the charges against peaceful demonstrators on 26 January, on an urgent basis. In addition, "to ensure fair investigation into the allegations of ill-treatment of detainees and the participants of the January demonstration of protest in Ismayilli, and ensure decent conditions of detention," the official statement issued in Brussels reads.
Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry spokesman Elman Abdullayev said that Baku sees this statement as pressure on the investigation and considers unacceptable the intervention in the investigation process.
He said that Azerbaijan considers this approach by EU biased and unfair. "We are very sorry that some EU officials, regarding the situation in the country, uniquely distort it and make biased, unfair assessment, "fanning" them. It makes us wonder and regret, "said Abdullayev.
It should be noted that the session of the court on Mammadov and Yagublu did not admit the head of the European Union representative office in Azerbaijan Roland Kobia. He had, along with other observers, to expect the trial results in the street outside. Azerbaijan's Foreign Ministry did not respond to this case. -0 -
Politics
-
Armenia is not against the dissolution of the OSCE Minsk Group, but does not consider it appropriate to discuss this issue now. "In the context of peace, we consider it possible to make a decision on the dissolution of the OSCE Minsk Group. When peace is an established fact, the existence of such a format may raise questions," Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said at a press conference today. "The whole question is about the timing, we need to understand how effectively and correctly to turn such topics into a subject of discussion right now," the Armenian Prime Minister added.
-
He expressed his willingness to meet with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev at the border between the two countries. "A meeting with Ilham Aliyev could take place at the Armenian-Azerbaijani border. I am open to such a format," Pashinyan said at a press conference today. According to Pashinyan, Armenia recently presented another proposal for a peace treaty to Azerbaijan.
-
On August 31, Azerbaijan observes a "day of silence" before the Sunday’s early parliamentary elections for the unicameral Milli Majlis. All electoral campaigning is prohibited 24 hours before the voting. The early elections were initiated by the ruling Yeni Azerbaijan Party. This decision was motivated by the overlap of the scheduled elections in November with the global UN forum - the COP20 climate conference taking place in Baku.
-
On August 30, at approximately 22:55, the Armenian Nuclear Power Plant in Metsamor was disconnected from the country's power grid, as reported by the Armenian Ministry of Territorial Administration and Infrastructure. The shutdown was caused by a lightning strike, which triggered the plant's safety systems to switch the station to a safe shutdown mode. Currently, the plant's staff is working on restarting the facility.
Leave a review