The reaction of the OSCE Office in Vienna (UPDATED)

The previous Head of Mission, Ambassador Alexis Chahtahtinsky, left his post after his contract had expired on 31 May. There is no connection between this process and the mandate of the OSCE's Project Co-ordinator’s Office in Azerbaijan. This Turan reported in the Vienna office of the OSCE.

2015 June 01 (Monday) 17:17:20

The activity of  Alex Shakhtakhtinsky, as a head of the OSCE office in Azerbaijan  has been stopped, wrote in his microblog on Twitter on Monday the deputy head of the Presidential Administration Novruz Mammadov. "I received  an information that the mandate  of Shakhtakhtinsky  was suspended," wrote Mammadov.  Some time later, Mamedov made a new record that the reason for this was the joint photo of Shakhtakhtinsky with the Azerbaijani leadership.

"The US Special Representative to the OSCE Daniel Baer reproached  Shakhtakhtinsky  for it, and that was the main reason,"  says Mamedov. Further, he ironuzed at the fact that if Shakhtakhtinsky had posed next to  Baer, future career would have been more successful.

The OSCE office told Turan that the term of office Shakhtakhtinsky actually expired. At the same time, they did not comment on the statement Mamedov of statements of  Daniel Baer.

"I noted that the two photos of you were with President Aliyev and the foreign minister... There was no photo of you reading the Decalogue, there was no photo of you with civil society, and I would just like to remind you that, while consultation with the host government is certainly an important part of your work, you work for all of us, and you work for the principles that underlie this organization. Your masters are not the Government of Azerbaijan..." Baer said to Shahtahtinski in Vienna to the Permanent Council of the OSCE, which took place in May 2014.

As Azerbaijan seeks to assume greater responsibility in the international community, the US "remains committed to working with Baku, and through the OSCE, to protect human rights and fundamental freedoms, and to advance democratic development in the country," Amb Baer stated, reminding that the OSCE Project coordinator in Baku has a "special responsibility to work with the people of Azerbaijan and to help the government uphold the organization’s principles, values, and commitments in all three dimensions – especially regarding human rights and fundamental freedoms – and to maintain and use strong contacts with civil society in this work."

"The OSCE Project Coordinator mandate articulated in PC Decision 1092 explicitly calls on the office to “maintain contacts” with civil society – including outside the context of specific projects. We urge you to execute your mandate with this crucial role in mind. Efforts to restrict OSCE activities by limiting contacts with civil society, and an unduly restrictive project approval process in the Memorandum of Understanding, hinder the OSCE from providing valuable support to Azerbaijan and are unacceptable," he said.

The OSCE last year decided to adopt the mandate of its office in Baku to project coordinator, upon Azeri government's request. The Baku office was transformed into the Project Coordinator as of 1 January 2014. 

Despite Washington's clear resistance when Azeri officials raised the issue, there weren't any significant criticism from the western countries, including US regarding the move. Amb. Chahtatinsky, a french diplomat, has been appointed as project coordinator in Baku starting from 1 March 2014.--16D-