Baku, January 26, AZERTAC

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) has turned into yet another tool for settling political scores and putting pressure on the disagreeable, the Russian political expert and head of expert-analytical network PolitRus, Vitaly Arkov, has told AZERTAC while commenting on the anti-Azerbaijani mechanism launched in PACE, in response to which the Azerbaijani delegation decided to stop any interaction with this organization and its presence in it until further notice.

“We welcome Azerbaijan's withdrawal from PACE, a structure that has long ceased to meet its stated goals and objectives, turning into yet another tool for settling political scores and putting pressure on those who do not want to become puppets of the United States and countries that have taken over the European Union - first it was Germany, but after the change of “steel” Chancellor Angela Merkel for the “plush” Olaf Scholz, France took over the levers,” the expert has told the agency.

Recalling that Russia had dropped out of PACE in March 2022, he emphasized that Moscow had done so with regret over not having done it earlier in the hope that it could persuade the so-called partners to return to the raison d'être of this association.

“PACE, which was established in a distant 1949 (then it was the Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe), positioned itself as a depoliticized structure designed to become a humanitarian and legal pillar of Greater Europe from Lisbon to Vladivostok. Azerbaijan realized what has become of it and made a wise decision. There are enough interstate associations in the Eurasian space and the world as a whole where members respect each other and work out solutions to common problems in a collegial manner. Azerbaijan acts as one of the ‘initiators’ of a number of such associations, putting truly relevant issues onto the current agenda,” the expert stated.

According to Arkov, the relations between Baku and the supra-European structures in Brussels and Strasbourg have long become difficult - the time of “political infatuation” quickly passed. Azerbaijan has taken off its rose glasses, while Europe has dropped its masks. “Every time Azerbaijan declared the need for Armenia to fulfill its commitments and restore its territorial integrity, it received the obviously mendacious accusations of trampling on the foundations of democracy, political repression, etc. Azerbaijan has recently been labeled as an aggressor state and attempts have been made to impose sanctions on it only because it “ventured” to regain control over its historical lands that had remained under Armenian occupation for 30 years. And for all these 30 years, none of the supra-European structures put forward any demands for punishing the real aggressor and occupier,” Arkov added.