Alexey Pushkov, the head of the Russian State Duma international committee, said that countries of the Western and Central Europe tended to avoid monitoring each other and are especially eager to study situations in countries such as Russia, Turkey, Azerbaijan and other countries who had only joined the organization in the mid-1990s, RIA Novosti reports.
Rasim Musabekov, an Azerbaijani politologist and member of parliament, opined that the Azerbaijani delegation could have asked such a question at PACE. In his words, Azerbaijan has successfully been countering criticism of human rights protection in the country. Azerbaijan demanded that PACE develop a universal approach to assessing the protection of human rights, pointing out that 10 people had been killed at the elections, many had been injured and arrested, though the elections gained satisfactory approval.
Expert Orkhan Gafarli of the BILGE Center of Strategic Research (Turkey) noted that Europe had been using two definitions: Old Europe and New Europe. The two are distinguished by English Euro-Atlantic mentality and Eurocentrism. He explained that England had good ties with Azerbaijan and Turkey. Germany is more Eurocentrist, according to the analyst, so its relations with Azerbaijan and Turkey were not as good. Gafarli believes that Germany and France want Azerbaijan and Turkey to fit into their interests. Azerbaijan has its own energy projects, especially regional ones depending on Russia, so they want to develop a balanced policy with the European Union, the expert explains. The countries want to estrange Azerbaijan and Turkey from Russia as much as possible, hence the recent pressure, Gafarli concludes.
