Azernews.Az

BAKU – The Council of Europe assembly’s rapporteurs aim to prepare an unbiased report assessing their visit to Azerbaijan, a PACE co-rapporteur said in Baku Thursday.

"It is too early to make conclusions at this point," Pedro Agramunt told a news conference. "In order to issue comprehensive feedback, the entire material drawn up during our meetings in Baku should be analyzed."

The Spanish lawmaker and the other PACE co-rapporteur on Azerbaijan, Joseph Debono Grech of Malta, wrapped up their three-day visit to the country on Thursday. During the visit, the rapporteurs monitored the situation in Azerbaijan following the parliamentary elections held last November and evaluated progress achieved toward releasing the so-called political prisoners.

The PACE representatives said their report will be drawn up as soon as possible and will most likely be ready in the coming months.

According to Agramunt, during their visit the rapporteurs had "open and sincere" meetings with government officials as well as representatives of the opposition and NGOs. He said no discussions were held with the opposition Musavat and Popular Front parties due to their own refusal.

"I think Musavat and Popular Front’s refusal to meet with us is not that fair, as dialog is necessary," he said.

Agramunt said the two parties had turned down a meeting with him for a second time, following their refusal during his visit to Azerbaijan as part of a Council of Europe pre-election observation mission.

The two parties’ refusal was due to what is termed as PACE’s biased stance put forward after Azerbaijan’s parliament elections. The opposition believes PACE avoided terse criticism in its feedback on the election, which it claimed was rigged.

The previous report of the PACE Monitoring Committee in charge of observing Azerbaijan’s compliance with its CE obligations was released in 2005.