The participants of the hearings in the PACE supported the sharp judgements presented in Belgian parliamentarian Jorge Clearfight’s report on political prisoners in Azerbaijan. As reported by “Arminfo” agency, the European parliamentarians demanded from the Baku leadership to discharge all the political prisoners. At the same time, PACE members refused the Azeri delegation’s request to insert a number of amendments in the report in order to extenuate the criticism addressed to the official Baku. As reported in their turn by the Azeri deputies, Azerbaijan’s expulsion from the PACE or depriving the delegation of the mandates of this organization would not be the settlement of the problem. In their opinion the cooperation aimed at its solution is more important. J. Clearfight suggested to give Azerbaijan time till September to settle the issue of the political prisoners, what was approved by the PACE session. In reply to “Turan” agency’s question concerning the reason of such an unexpected change of the PACE position, J. Clearfight stated that “PACE does not aim at condemning Azerbaijan”. “We hope that certain steps will be done till September. Then we will decide what to do”, – he stated.
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