Ilham Aliyev made the comments in a meeting he had in Baku on 20 September with a delegation from the EU-Azerbaijan Parliamentary Cooperation Committee.
"Major setback"
Aliyev said: "Unfortunately, the European Parliament resolution passed a year ago was a major setback for our relationship. It was a big surprise. We in Azerbaijan perceive it as hostile, incorrect, based on incorrect information, biased and as aiming to damage our country's standing. It will be difficult to move further and plan our future work if this is not sorted out.
"It says that in the past few years the overall human rights situation in Azerbaijan has worsened. This is not true. The human rights situation has been improving in Azerbaijan," Aliyev said.
"Lies" about reporter, rights champ
"It says several things that are based on incorrect information, and I do not know if [it says so] intentionally or by mistake. One of them is that journalists and civil society representatives are constantly threatened and persecuted. [It says that] one of them, Emin Milli, director of [German-based opposition online] Meydan TV received death threats. This is a mistake and a lie. He never received death threats. I am not sure why it says so. It may be part of an anti-Azerbaijan campaign," Aliyev said.
He went on: "Rights activist Emin Huseynov was falsely accused and sought asylum in Switzerland and was stripped of his Azerbaijani citizenship. This is based on incorrect information, too. This person wrote me a letter asking me to strip him of his citizenship. This was done in line with the Azerbaijani constitution. He hid for several months in the [Swiss] embassy. The Swiss foreign minister arrived here and flew him back to Switzerland on his plane [in 2015]. An agreement was reached between the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry and the Swiss Foreign Ministry to this effect. There are documents, there is a letter from Huseynov. Nobody stripped him of his citizenship. This is a lie, too."
Rallies not banned
"It says that peaceful demonstrators have been banned from holding demonstrations in the centre of Baku since 2006. This is a lie. Rallies have not been banned. Freedom of assembly is completely ensured in our country. The opposition has freely held rallies in the centre of Baku since 2006 to date, and it did so before 2006 and does so now. They gathered several hundreds of people. It is a different story why people did not join those demonstrations... So, this is a lie as well."
"We have nothing to do with" journalist's death
"Another thing [that the document says] is that journalist Rasim Aliyev died [in 2015] in a hospital in Baku after being brutally beaten up after continuously receiving threats for allegedly criticizing President Aliyev on social networking websites. This is a direct accusation against me of committing a crime. I can sue those who wrote this. Unfortunately, sports reporter Rasim Aliyev died by a tragedy. He was beaten up by relatives and fans of a footballer for criticizing some things that the footballer had done. They beat him up and this [the reporter's death] was an accident. We have nothing to do with it. He never criticized [Aliyev] and nobody had even known this person."
Relations with EU "very good"
Aliyev went on to quote the resolution as saying that "Azerbaijan aims for strategic partnership and seeks to expand and deepen relations with the European Union". He said: "It is not only us. The European Union, too, seeks to deepen its relationship with us. Therefore, I think that this text does not reflect the actual gist of our cooperation. Our cooperation with the European Union is based on mutual interests and mutual respect. Incidentally, overall we have a very good relationship with the European Union. We have signed strategic partnership declarations with nine EU countries. For this reason, there is a big difference between our relations with the European Union, EU member countries and the European Parliament."
Condition for OSCE to re-open Baku office
He went on to explain why the OSCE office in Baku was shut down in July 2015. First, he cited the resolution as saying that the office was shut down by a decision of the Azerbaijani government after a memorandum of understanding between the government and the OSCE was terminated.
Then he said: "True, it was terminated, but, for your information, I should say that there was a reason for that. The local representative in the OSCE office [Alexis Shakhtakhtinsky] was a French citizen of Azerbaijani origin and the only Azeri working in the French Foreign Ministry. He is a representative of a very famous family... Azerbaijan respects his family very much. This person was dismissed from his post, after working for just one year, as a result of serious intervention by the US ambassador to OSCE, Baer, who levelled accusations against him at a meeting of a permanent committee for the fact that he had a photo of himself with me in it in his office.
"According to information available to me, they exerted pressure on the French government, and the OSCE's local representative [Alexis] Shakhtakhtinsky was dismissed without being given any explanation. An end was put to his career and he was dismissed from the French Foreign Ministry. Just because he had a photo with me in it. If the US representative to the OSCE believes that it is a crime to be photographed with me, what can we talk about then?! What did I say? I said that if Shakhtakhtinsky was dismissed, the office would be shut down. I gave them a warning. They did not listen to and we did it. Now they want to resume the operation of the office. I have set them a condition. Bring Shakhtakhtinsky back and restore justice and his career, in which case we will re-open the office..."
Azerbaijan dismissive of Freedom House
"Freedom House believes that Azerbaijan is not free, the internet is partially free [in Azerbaijan] and Azerbaijan has been the most backward one in democratic government in Eurasia in the last 10 years. Can you imagine that? This is absolutely ridiculous... Freedom House is pro-Armenian and constantly attacks Azerbaijan. For this reason, it is an organization that our country has no relations with," he said.
He said Azerbaijan viewed Freedom House reports as unfounded and that it was surprising that the resolution made a reference to the group.
EP non-monitoring of election "did not change anything"
He said the European Parliament refused to send a mission to monitor the 2015 November parliamentary election in Azerbaijan. "But its non-participation did not change anything, nor did it affect the positive evaluations given by others," he said.
Azerbaijan not to blame
"Now, this is what the situation is like now - effectively, we have not had any relations for one year. This is not through our fault. We continue to cooperate with other European institutions - the European Union, the Council of Europe, the OSCE.
He said the document had been promoted by EP President Martin Schulz and EP member Ulrike Lunacek who he
He said that according to information available to Azerbaijan, the resolution was passed counter to EP procedures. He said several EP members had warned against passing it. He quoted an EP as saying that "We will lose Azerbaijan." "Perhaps, he was right," Aliyev said and went on to say that Azerbaijan did not set up a working group within its parliament and terminated its activities within
The Azartac report also cited Aliyev as saying that despite the "crisis" in the relationship with the EP, ties with the EU on the basis of mutual interests successfully developed and that against a background of the EP resolution on Azerbaijan, the EP had not reacted to the poor state of democracy is in neighbouring Armenia. He said Azerbaijan attached major importance to ties with European countries. He called for
It quoted the visiting delegation as saying that Azerbaijan was an "important country" to the EP and that they were "interested in expanding the relationship" and committed to cooperation with Azerbaijan regarding the Southern Gas Corridor, and that Azerbaijan was a model among Muslim countries in terms of building a secular society and successful reforms.
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