Azerbaijan, Baku, June 4 / Trend , E.Ostapenko /
The co-rapporteurs of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) need more time to prepare a report on the situation in Azerbaijan with regards to country's implementation of its obligations before the organization.
"We actually hope that we could open session with report, but now it seems to be unrealistic. It takes more time," Anders Herkel, PACE co-rapporteur on Azerbaijan, told Trend by telephone from Tallinn.
A preliminary exchange of views on the topic related to Azerbaijan will be held at the meeting of the PACE Monitoring Committee on Friday in Paris. PACE co-rapporteur on Azerbaijan Andreas Herkel and Yevgenia Zhivkova had to submit a report on their recent visit to Azerbaijan in April this year.
"It is not a document in a full sense. It is rather the information, a note about our last visit, because we have not discussed it during the session, but of course, I am going to give you the overview about the situation," he said.
"It takes more time to prepare a full document. We are going to prepare it," co-rapporteur said.
Onе of the main points of the discussions tomorrow will be the opinion of the Venice Commission about the referendum in Azerbaijan on March 18.
In March a referendum was held in Azerbaijan on amendments and additions to the Constitution.
As a result of the vote, all amendments to 29 articles of the Constitution of Azerbaijan were supported by 87-91 percent of voters in the country.
The referendum proposes replacing the current version of the 5th paragraph of Article 101 of the Constitution, which states that "no person shall be elected President of the Republic of Azerbaijan for more than two consecutive terms," by an option to extend the incumbent president's term in the event of ongoing military operations.
Another important topic of discussion will be the situation with freedom of the media, said Herkel.
"Despite that during our last visit Mirza Zakit was released, we are still concerned about the situation with the freedom of the media, including journalists imprisoned," Herkel stated.
According to the Amnesty Act, adopted in connection with Novruz Holiday at the initiative of the First Lady of Azerbaijan, President of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation, Goodwill Ambassador of UNESCO and ISESCO, MP Mehriban Aliyeva, the representative of Azadlyg newspaper Mirza Sakit was released from prison.
In June 2006, Sakit was sentenced to three years in prison. He was accused of illegal possession of drugs. The journalist considers his arrest a political order, and connects it with the published radical articles.
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