Azerbaijan, Baku, September 25 / corr. Trend Е.Ostapenko /
A new co-rapporteur of the PACE Monitoring Committee on Azerbaijan instead of Yevgenia Zhivkova should be appointed next Thursday, October 1, said PACE spokesperson Angus Macdonald.
"One of the two posts of co-rapporteur for the monitoring of Azerbaijan is currently vacant, but it is foreseen that a new co-rapporteur should be appointed by the Monitoring Committee next week, on Thursday 1st October, during a meeting of the committee on the fringes of the PACE session in Strasbourg," Macdonald told Trend via e-mail on Sept. 25
Co-rapporteur Zhivkova's resignation became known in June, but until appointment of a new person, she is officially in office. Another PACE co-rapporteur on Azerbaijan is Andres Herkel, head of the Estonian delegation and vice-president of PACE.
Macdonald refused to comment on the most likely candidate for the post until his/her appointment as co-rapporteur.
He said that the normal practice is that the person appointed would make contact with the Azerbaijani delegation shortly after appointment, to introduce themselves and to prepare - along with the other co-rapporteur - their programme of visits and co-operation with the Azeri authorities.
"Of course we would like co-rapporteur to become one of the representatives of Turkey, Georgia and other countries close to us. However, the discussion in the Monitoring Committee are held behind closed doors, so the name of the new co-rapporteur will be made public only after making a concrete decision," member of the Azerbaijani delegation to PACE, Gultekin Hajibeyli, told Trend formerly.
While joining the Council of Europe in 2001, Azerbaijan undertook a number of obligations, of which fulfillment is monitored by the Monitoring Committee.
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