Azerbaijan, Baku, Feb.9 / Trend K. Zarbaliyeva /
The Council of Europe applies policy of double standards towards Azerbaijan, the head of the Azerbaijani delegation to PACE Samad Seyidov believes.
"The Council of Europe made a big mistake by appointing a rapporteur to Azerbaijan on political prisoners. There are MPs under arrest in Armenia, but the Council of Europe does not make demands to this country to release political prisoners," Seyidov said on Wednesday at a meeting in the roundtable format on the topic "Azerbaijan and Council of Europe: cooperation in human rights" held with the organization of the Ombudsman Office.
In addition, he said, during PACE winter session the issue of violation of Christians' rights in the Middle East was submitted for discussion. "The draft document noted that Azerbaijan has imposed a ban on Christians' worship. We managed to remove this item from the document. Only 350 Catholics live in Azerbaijan, but despite this, a church was built for them at the center of Baku. Conditions for the worship of all religions' representatives have been created in the country," Seyidov said.
The MP expressed regret over the ungrounded and biased decisions of the Council of Europe. According to Seyidov, Azerbaijan's interests in the PACE are protected by it at the highest level.