Azerbaijani Deputy Premier meets OSCE/ODIHR Director

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Mətbuat xidmətinin məlumatı 10 April, 2015

Azerbaijan`s Deputy Prime Minister and Chairman of the State Committee for Refugees and IDPs Ali Hasanov has today met director of the OSCE/ODIHR Michael Link. The sides described Azerbaijan`s long-term cooperation with the OSCE ODIHR as “productive” in various fields, including fight against terrorism, human trafficking, as well as in democratization of a society and issues related with tolerance. Mr. Hasanov noted a legal state was established and a serious work on the principles of protection of human rights has been done in Azerbaijan, which restored its independence 24 years ago. “Before, we were rebutted in various fields of democratization, fight against corruption and protection of human rights. But look how it changed during these 20 years. We have just restored our independence. A big part of that we dedicated to aggressive policy of Armenia. Our country is in war conditions, 20 percent of our territories have been occupied, and we have more than a million refugees and IDPs. Despite all of these, Azerbaijan is on the way of development, and cooperates with international organizations and other countries,” he noted. The Deputy PM underlined that the Azerbaijani President have determined 5 directions of strategic development of the country. “According to that strategy, until 2020 there will not be a poor person in the country.” Mr. Hasanov described traditions of tolerance in Azerbaijan as an “example for a number of countries of the world”. The Deputy Premier recalled his meetings with heads of observation missions of the OSCE/ODIHR, which monitored presidential and parliamentary elections in Azerbaijan, and noted “Observation, during the elections should be just. The results of the observations must be written here.” According to the Deputy Premier, a main problem of todays` world is a lack of justice. Director of the OSCE/ODIHR Michael Link said during the visit he wanted to study problems of refugees and IDPs. “This issue is directly connected with human rights. If thousands of people cannot live in their homelands, this means rough violation of human rights,” he said. Touching upon the upcoming parliamentary elections in Azerbaijan, Mr. Link expressed confidence that the OSCE/ODIHR would organize an observation mission in transparent and unbiased manners.