PACE wants dialogue with Azerbaijan - but according to old scenario

It has become a tradition in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe to begin the January session by unkindly mentioning the name of Azerbaijan. Our country has been absent from the ranks of this structure for two years, and PACE cannot forget about us. 

On Monday, a resolution entitled "Progress in the monitoring procedure of the Assembly" was adopted in Strasbourg. The resolution is devoted to human rights in general, not to Azerbaijan alone, but the section concerning our country is, as always, extensive. PACE demands that Baku release someone, provide something, comply with the decisions of the European Court of Justice, and so on. It is noteworthy that the drafters of the text did not even notice that the Armenian prisoners were no longer 23, but 19, since four had recently been transferred to Armenia. This important fact was somehow overlooked by the European educators. The transfer of four prisoners to Yerevan was a high-profile event, so it is not serious to talk about the ignorance of the drafters of the document. Even if it was compiled a long time ago, changes should have been made to it.

But that's not even the main thing. The main reason for this "legal" noise was the demand to cancel the decision of the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry to declare PACE deputies persona non grata, who voted to deprive the Azerbaijani delegation of its mandate. Moreover, it should be canceled immediately, and then proceed "to a constructive dialogue with all bodies of the Council of Europe, including the Assembly itself."

All this reminded me of a round date that went unnoticed in Azerbaijan. 25 years ago, on January 25, 2001, Azerbaijan became a member of the Council of Europe. And on January 24, 2024, deputies of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe voted to deprive the Azerbaijani delegation of its mandate. Apparently, this demarche was timed to coincide with the next anniversary of our country's accession to the Council of Europe. Its organizers believed that it would be symbolic and touch Baku to the quick. But Baku was not particularly upset, but the participants in the conspiracy against Azerbaijan lost their right to enter the country.

Azerbaijan will lift the ban on PACE members visiting the country when our delegation returns to this organization, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said at the Cernobbio International Forum in September 2024. "Our decision was the answer. If they change their decision and restore our right, this so-called embargo will be lifted. <...> Our delegation must return, and then the ban will be lifted," the head of state said. President Ilham Aliyev stressed that PACE had crossed a red line with its decision, these were sanctions imposed on the country for restoring its sovereignty.

At a forum at ADA University in April 2025, President Ilham Aliyev, responding to a question from a professor from Spain regarding the failure of international organizations, including the Council of Europe (CoE), in resolving the Karabakh conflict, stated that yes, by joining the Council of Europe, Azerbaijan was full of hopes to enlist the support of European structures, but this was not the case. It happened. Expectations were not fulfilled. But after Azerbaijan restored its territorial integrity and sovereignty, PACE deprived its delegation of the right to vote. Since then, Azerbaijan has not participated in the work of the Assembly. He did not participate in the selection of the judges of the ECHR, so, President Ilham Aliyev warned, all the decisions of this court are invalid for us.

The head of state made it clear that Azerbaijan will survive without PACE membership. In principle, he can live without membership in the Council of Europe as a whole. A lot of things have changed in the world, and "the bureaucrats in Brussels and Strasbourg live on their own planet. It seems to them that everyone around them is trying to get closer to them."

Interestingly, the then PACE President Theodoros Roussopoulos reacted violently to these statements by the Azerbaijani leader. He took this as "blackmail" and got angry, saying that the Council of Europe was not afraid of such statements, because "the Council of Europe has made and is making decisions in its Assembly in accordance with the rule of law, human rights and democratic procedures."

And no one thought of blackmailing the Council of Europe. It is the parliamentary structure of the Council of Europe that has been blackmailing Azerbaijan for 25 years, or rather, for 23 years, with its biased and openly biased decisions. Our country has not done anything that would contradict international law, the UN Charter or resolutions adopted by the UN Security Council. Depriving her of the right to vote in PACE was an absolutely unjustified, biased and illogical decision. The Armenian delegation, which occupied the territories of its neighbor and violated all imaginable international norms and principles during the occupation period, should have been deprived of its mandate during these decades. However, the "democratic procedures" were applied not to her, but to Azerbaijan.

Why has Armenia never been convicted of the occupation of Azerbaijani territories, ethnic cleansing and vandalism? This issue has remained in the air both in PACE and in other international organizations. None of these structures, until they give a clear answer to this question, has the right to make claims to our country and cover up their phobias with the well-worn topic of human rights.

Azerbaijan also once believed in European democracy and the power of international law. When he joined the Council of Europe in 2001, he hoped for the triumph of justice, that his place would be shown to the occupier, and that the Council of Europe would impose strict demands on Yerevan to fulfill the conditions it had assumed upon joining the Council of Europe. Azerbaijan hoped that the "cradle of democracy" would protect its rights and bring the aggressor to order. But instead of all this, the occupier was taken into custody by Europe, and the stones flew as a victim of the occupation. Throughout its years of membership in the Council of Europe, Baku has had to fend off attacks from members of the Armenophile club. PACE, which ignored Armenia's crimes, fought to the last drop of its blood for the opening of the Lachin road to the separatists, spoke of "ethnic cleansing" after the anti-terrorist operation and accused Baku of failing to fulfill its obligations to the Council of Europe. Unable to influence the situation in which international law was on Azerbaijan's side, it was decided to punish Baku by depriving it of its mandate in PACE. Which was done in January 2024.

And yet, despite the difficult history of relations, the current PACE document with its traditional set of accusations against Baku sounds somehow sluggish. It seems that the authors themselves are tired of themselves. Or there are no more orders for the defaming of Azerbaijan, and the structure acts simply by inertia. They accelerated, but they can't slow down in any way. It takes honesty and willpower to slow down. At a time when Azerbaijan and Armenia are moving towards peaceful cooperation, the presence of one of these countries in PACE in the absence of the other looks strange. Moreover, everyone knows that Azerbaijan was ousted from the Assembly in the interests of Armenia. The withdrawal of the Azerbaijani delegation's mandate was greeted almost with an orchestra and called a "diplomatic victory" for Armenia. 

Today's trend is that even Yerevan's closest allies and other provocateurs have fallen silent and are trying not to trip up the peace process. PACE could contribute to this process by revoking its notorious decision No. 2527 of January 24, 2024. However, judging by the latest resolution, Strasbourg wants a "constructive dialogue" and expects Baku to take the first step. But this is unlikely to happen. Because cooperation with the Assembly is possible only after the restoration of the mandate of the Azerbaijani delegation. So in any case, the first step will have to be taken by PACE.

Meanwhile, PACE has a new president. Austrian MP Petra Bayer has been elected head of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. Let's see what success Ms. Bayer will have.