Azernews.Az

By Sara Rajabova

Azerbaijan has strongly condemned the resolution adopted by the European Parliament on the country on September 10.

Baku stated that the country will reconsider its relations with the European Union.

“We should reconsider relations with the European Union given the anti-Azerbaijan and anti-Islam tendencies,” Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry said in the statement on September 11.

Due to the European Parliament’s biased resolution on Azerbaijan, the ministry already postponed a visit by a delegation of the European Commission to Baku, scheduled for the next week for initial discussions as part of the strategic partnership agreement with the EU.

In the meantime, Malena Mard, the head of the European Union’s delegation to Azerbaijan was called to the foreign ministry.

Azerbaijan’s deputy foreign minister Mahmud Mammad-Guliyev said at the meeting that this biased and destructive document undermines the relations between EU and Azerbaijan and creates serious obstacle for their future prospect.

“Hasty adoption of this resolution through quick voting by the plenary without prior and proper deliberations in the respective committees highlighted some procedural shortcomings which were also challenged by some EP members in the plenary,” Mammad-Guliyev said.

He noted that the resolution is full of biased and distorted information on the human rights situation in Azerbaijan. “It specifically politicizes the individual criminal cases and raises ungrounded accusations as to their real substance.”

Mammad-Guliyev also went on to say that EP’s constant selective approach towards Azerbaijan demonstrates that human rights issues are used as a tool to exert politically motivated pressure on Azerbaijan.

“But the EP members should know that such attempts are doomed to failure from the very inception. Abusive language used in certain provisions of the resolution goes beyond the ethical norms and crosses the “red line”. Absurd and silly accusations directed against our country are totally unacceptable and seriously undermine the credibility of the institution. The groundless calls for targeted sanctions and visa bans can in no way be tolerated,” he said.

Mammad-Guliyev stressed that this clearly testifies that the adoption of such a document is in the interest of a narrow circle of engaged forces whose sole aim is to damage the growing international reputation of Azerbaijan.

“At the same time, the term “Nagorno Karabakh” used in resolution is contrary to international law and unacceptable either,” the official pointed out.

He said it is surprising to see continuous attention by EP to human rights situation in Azerbaijan whereas the European continent is confronted with a number of serious challenges requiring urgent solution.

“We think it would be more appropriate for the European Parliament to pay necessary attention to the systematic human rights violations in the EU member states, such as excessive use of force, ill-treatment by law enforcement agencies, discrimination and intolerance, Islamophobia, corruption, migration issues etc, reported by UN human rights mechanisms, the Council of Europe, OSCE, and other international organizations,” Mammad-Guliyev said.

He further said it is also disappointing that the European Commission did not take serious attempts to prevent the EP from voting on such a deplorable resolution.

“On the contrary, recent statements by the high-ranking officials of the European Commission rendered their own negative contribution to this,” the official said.

Mard, in turn, said position of Azerbaijan will be delivered to the relevant structures of the European Union.

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Sara Rajabova is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @SaraRajabova

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