Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec.9
Trend:
Azerbaijan's delegation to the Euronest Parliamentary Assembly said that 2014 has been a year of "attacks, resolutions and declarations" against their country, which casts a "grave shadow" over the objectivity of the European Parliament, said the article posted on the PR Newswire website.
The head of Azerbaijan's delegation to the Euronest Parliamentary Assembly, Elkhan Suleymanov, is quoted in the article as saying that Azerbaijan has effectively been punished for its positive engagement with Europe through the Eastern Partnership Initiative of the EU.
Suleymanov is concerned that Azerbaijan has been singled out for criticism while rival Armenia chooses to "abandon ties with the EU" by joining the Russian-led Eurasian Customs Unions.
Given this move, Suleymanov questions why Armenia has been rewarded with even more EU funding and the privilege of hosting the next Euronest Plenary Session in Yerevan next year, a meeting Azerbaijan will boycott.
All these factors "cast a shadow over the whole EP," said an open letter of head of Azerbaijan's delegation to the European Parliament.
Suleymanov is also critical of an October report, which looked at ways of building stronger partnerships between the EU and eastern partner countries via the European Neighbourhood Instrument, the article said.
The European Parliament report is focussed on the crisis in Ukraine and "condemns the Russian aggression in eastern Ukraine and the illegal annexation of Crimea", said the article.
But it makes no mention of Armenia's occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding Azerbaijani territories condemned by a number of international organisations, including the United Nations Security Council and the European Parliament, according to the article.
But despite these concerns, the head of Azerbaijan's delegation to the Euronest Parliamentary Assembly remains positive about 2015, said the article.
Suleymanov expressed hope that the European Parliament can "present an objective face towards Azerbaijan" in 2015, the article said.