Azernews.Az

BAKU – The outgoing head of the OSCE office in Baku said that in over two years of his work in Azerbaijan he has established close ties with the government, civil society and political parties.

Bilge Cankorel told a news conference Tuesday upon the completion of his tenure in the country that the OSCE office has implemented 120 projects in this period in a slew of areas spanning from combat against domestic violence to ways of improving electoral practices. Some of the projects are still ongoing, he said.

According to Cankorel, one of the milestones was dialog conducted among Azerbaijani political parties for the first time in the past eight years.

He said that as a result of cooperation with the media watchdog Press Council, a code of journalists’ ethics has been developed and efforts stepped up to pass a libel law in Azerbaijan.

Cankorel said the OSCE office has also established beneficial cooperation with Azerbaijani law enforcement agencies and over 30 visits were paid to monitor police precincts in the past two years. Also, the OSCE Office-supported community policing project is being successfully implemented jointly with the interior ministry.

Cankorel said OSCE office representatives have monitored 2,500 court cases in recent years. According to him, the OSCE has set up four resource centers across Azerbaijan to provide legal counsel to citizens.

As for OSCE’s projects that have not yielded the desired results, Cankorel said these included ones concerning enforcement of the law on freedom of assembly, the make-up of electoral commissions and registration of election candidates.

Cankorel said he would leave Azerbaijan over the next two weeks. His successor has not yet been named.