Azerbaijan, Baku / Trend corr. S.Ilhamgizi / The Azerbaijani Vahdat Party was not invited to a meeting organized by the Baku office of the Council of Europe to discuss the formation of the Election Code. The party looked upon this as disrespect, Tair Karimli, the chairman of the party, said.
The meeting with participation of 12 Azerbaijani political parties was held in the Baku office of the Council of Europe on 5 October.
"The Baku office of the Council of Europe demonstrated disrespect towards us. Earlier we held meetings with the Baku office of the Council of Europe to submit our proposals", Karimli said.
Sergey Kuznetsov, a representative of the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe, said that all parties who participated in the last Parliamentary elections would be invited to attend meetings dedicated to discussions on the Azerbaijani Election Code.
The Union of pro-Azerbaijani forces took part in the last Parliamentary elections with 46 candidates.
"The Council of Europe invited parties represented in the Parliamentary elections with three or four candidates," Vahdat's chairman said.
Ilgar Ibrahimoglu, the press-secretary, said a list of participants of the next meeting had not been defined yet.
Vahdat was in the opposition in 2006. The party is headed by the former chairman of Azerbaijan's Supreme Court, ex-MP Tahir Karimli, who supports the authorities' political course.