Azernews.Az

By Sara Rajabova

Azerbaijan-Europe relations are increasingly strengthening and covering more and more areas, Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee for International Relations and Interparliamentary Ties, head of the Azerbaijani delegation to the PACE Samad Seyidov said.

Seyidov made the remark in an exclusive interview with AzerTAc , while commenting on recent media reports about Azerbaijan-Europe relations. Seyidov said these media reports were "far from reality".

"Some media outlets have recently spread ungrounded reports on Europe-Azerbaijan, Council of Europe-Azerbaijan reports. Azerbaijan-Europe relations are increasingly strengthening and covering more and more areas. From this point of view Azerbaijan-Europe relations deserve a particular attention," he said.

Seyidov mentioned that President Ilham Aliyev has said at the recent World Economic Forum that Azerbaijan-Europe relations must be elevated to the level of strategic partnership because these relations cannot be fully covered by the Associative Agreement.

"Unfortunately, we have recently witnessed attempts to undermine Azerbaijan-Europe relations. Azerbaijan will soon take over the presidency of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe. This will happen in June. In this capacity, Azerbaijan will head 47 countries. It is a historic event. We joined the Council of Europe in 2001, and in 2014 we take over the presidency of the organization. It happens on a rotatory basis. It will happen again in 22 years. So some forces want to damage Azerbaijan-Europe relations in different ways," he said.

Seyidov noted that some media outlets deliberately confuse the Council of Europe and European Parliament issues.

"Today I came across reports alleging that some members of the Council of Europe and European Parliament should be punished because of Europe-Azerbaijan relations. In fact, it is far from reality. As far as members of the European Parliament are concerned, one should be absolutely confident that Azerbaijan has constructive relations with European Parliament and the Council of Europe, and these relations are not based on any subjective issues. I mean that the European parliamentarians do not support Azerbaijan, they support a just position, justice, and no one ever wanted to or will ever punish them for backing the truth," Seyidov said.

"These media reports one again prove that the deepener and broader Azerbaijan-Europe relations are and the more important the country is to Europe, the more active those who want to undermine these relations become. I reiterate that the reports alleging that the European parliamentarians who have good relations with Azerbaijan should be punished are far from reality."