Baku, Azerbaijan, April 6
By Leman Zeynalova – Trend:
Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko touched upon election campaigns in the CIS countries, including in Azerbaijan, during a meeting with heads of delegations participating in a meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in Minsk, Belarus media reported April 6.
“I am sure the Azerbaijani people will make the right choice, like the Russian people, in favor of strengthening and prosperity of their state. We believe in further development of relations with the country, both in bilateral and multilateral formats,” Lukashenko said.
Speaking about the role of the CIS observer missions, the president noted that Belarus always stood for objectivity in evaluation of electoral process and pointed to the high politicization of the work of European colleagues.
“The election monitoring through the Commonwealth allows to form an alternative opinion and fight against the monopoly of Western experts, who often make their judgments before the voting. So, we see the positive role of the CIS observer missions and support their active work. This is one of the most important and indisputable activities of the CIS, useful for everyone,” Lukashenko said.
Eight candidates were registered to participate in the April 11 presidential election in Azerbaijan.
The meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) kicked off in Minsk, Belarus, on April 6.
Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry told Trend that the country is represented by Deputy Foreign Minister Khalaf Khalafov in the meeting.
Representatives of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Belarus, Turkmenistan, Moldova and Armenia are also participating in the meeting.