Today the European Parliament approved a resolution that calls for targeted sanctions against certain officials of Azerbaijan, who, according to its authors, do not respect human rights. The message was posted on the official website of the organization.
The document was supported by 202 out of the 365 members who participated in the voting. It contains information about an increase of repressions in Azerbaijan and the number of detained human rights defenders and journalists.
It is also assumed that the EU should encourage the government of Azerbaijan to cancel the decision to close the OSCE office in Baku, as well as re-engage with the organization.
In article 21 of the document, the authors announced the need for the European Union and the office for foreign policy of the EU not to send observers to the parliamentary elections in Azerbaijan. "Sending observers under the current circumstances is meaningless and it serves to legitimize elections that have serious violations," Haqqin.az cites the text of the document.
Azerbaijani politicians, MPs Rasim Musabekov and Asim Mollazade, said in an interview for Vestnik Kavkaza that the Azerbaijani authorities do not intend to listen to European officials’ sermons, whose actions are caused by the Armenian lobby, but the imposition of sanctions by individual countries is unlikely.
‘‘It's a verbal appeal. I think the reaction will be exactly the same – just verbal – because the European Parliament isn’t empowered to impose any sanctions," Musabekov said.
The political scientist pointed out that the reason for the adoption of the resolution is the independent position of Azerbaijan, which does not intend to submit to anybody’s will.
"There are circles which don’t like an independent Azerbaijan's behavior in many ways. The European Union and its deputies are annoyed that they cannot impose anything, or dictate to Azerbaijan. I don’t exclude that there are also Armenian lobbyists who are interested in creating tension in the relations between Azerbaijan and the EU. In any case, Azerbaijan is building its line of cooperation with the EU on a pragmatic basis and Azerbaijan won’t be dictated to by any morals and guidelines of MEPs,’’ he said.
