Azerbaijan, Baku, 17 April / corr. Trend A. Maharramli, I. Alizade/ The Parliament Assembly of Council of Europe (PACE0 should pay attention to the recent developments in Armenia and should not turn a blind eye to them. "If PACE closely follows the events in Azerbaijan and Georgia, it should also closely follow the recent developments in other South Caucasus country - Armenia," said Samad Sayidov, the head of Azerbaijani delegation during the urgent discussions over presidential elections in Armenia held within the PACE session in 17 April.
On 19 Feb, presidential elections were held in Armenia. The Central Election Commission said that Serj Sarkisyan, the former premier and a candidate from the government won the elections by gaining 52.2% of votes. The supporters of former president Levon Ter-Petrosyan, a key candidate from the opposition, did not accept the election outcome and staged uninterrupted demonstrations. The peaceful demonstrations were dispersed by the law enforcement agencies at night from 1 to 2 March resulting in death of 9 people and hundreds of people being wounded and arrested.
"The current report was more balanced than the one introduced in the first day. Armenia is required to conduct independent investigation. If we approach the situation mildly, then how can we make comparisons with other countries? I am against the statement that Armenia should not be compared with other countries," Seyidov added.
Gultakin Hajiyeva, the member of Azerbaijani delegation said that the delegations representing the country, who committed violations during the elections, are usually deprived of the right to vote. "As to the depriving Armenian delegation of this right for the elections that were accompanied with brutality, there has not been any such proposal made for this as yet. How can the undemocratic presidential elections resulting in mass human victims meet Council of Europe standards? Some people want to appoint a reporter for Azerbaijan because of 5-10 political prisoners in the country. But no one is going to speak about appointing a reporter for more than 100 arrested members of party, former MPs and other political figures in Armenia," she said.