23/01/2023 | 17:38:41 (Undelivered speech, Rules of Procedure Art. 31.2) Mr President: As you well know, for more than 40 days Nagorno Karabakh has been under siege by Azerbaijan. For the entire period of its membership in our organisation, Azerbaijan both in its domestic and foreign politics has been guided by political violence and war as tools and means of state policy. The Azerbaijani government has continuously pursued a politics of radical racism and ethnic cleansings against "the others" and specifically... 12/10/2022 | 11:45:11 Mr Chairman, Many countries in this Parliamentary Assembly will testify to at least having uneven relations with Türkiye. Some of them have had the hope that, as a result of the EU accession process, Türkiye would begin to live by the European rules of the game, but that perspective has probably vanished by now. Türkiye has itself rejected this path in order to have its own ambitions of becoming the leader of the Muslim world and of the wider region, achieved without any external obligations... 10/10/2022 | 13:03:09 (Undelivered speech, Rules of Procedure Art. 31.2) In the context of the continuous aggression of Azerbaijan against Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh I would like to raise the following questions: Our organisation had preferred to limit itself by vague and unaddressed statements which would put signs of equality between and among the parties to this conflict. Hence, I would like to be told: what's the clear and unambiguous position of our organisation: is Azerbaijan an aggressor state, and... 23/06/2022 | 19:33:13 Thank you, Madam Chair. Social networks and modern communication technologies have become the main tools for ideological influence over the past decade. In a sense, we now live in an era where a new type of individual is being born: someone who has ceased belonging to his own state, his community or even to himself, but rather depending on social networks and the messages they broadcast. This over-dependence on social networks has been leading to the disintegration of other fundamental... 21/06/2022 | 10:30:31 Thank you. Mr President, In the past decades our organisation has tried to pursue issues like minority rights, gender equality, diversity, and other important issues for democratic statehood. But we also failed to address more fundamental aspects of democratic peace. That is the protection of the right to life and the right of people's self-determination. It seems to me, we have began to treat human destiny rather selectively and very often in the context of geopolitics. Some debates in this... 28/04/2022 | 16:20:47 Mister Chairman, There are two issues mentioned in the documents under discussion that I am going to highlight. First, I would like to refer to the statement that I quote "democracy is not the dictatorship of the majority". Unfortunately, this is the path that in the past years a number of governments in our member States have chosen. This way often results in the consolidation of power by one political force and, thereby, exaggerated executive power. Then it yields limitations on the role of... 28/04/2022 | 10:57:32 Mr Minister, Far too often in this Parliamentary Assembly we hear claims by the members of the Azerbaijani delegation that there is no Nagorno-Karabakh conflict anymore; that there is no negotiation process within the frameworks of the OSCE Minsk Group. I thought such claims would be addressed mostly to their domestic audience, but not to the Council of Europe, where many know for a fact that the conflict has not yet been resolved in a sustainable way. The Karabakh issue cannot be closed only... 26/04/2022 | 11:03:49 Mr President, the latest developments on the European continent shall make us all think about how can the Council of Europe remain the main institution that is going to be able to defend democracy and democratic values, and be the platform for dialogue and development for the European nations? It is high time for the adoption of our own version of the Lisbon Treaty for the Council of Europe with due regard to the requirements of the 21st century and the new realities in the world. I think the... 25/04/2022 | 17:40:08 Mister President, Yesterday, on 24 April, Armenians all around the world and many other nations were commemorating the Armenian Genocide – a crime against humanity that two members of the Council of Europe – Turkey and Azerbaijan – are denying. The International Association of Genocide Scholars calls denial the last stage of the same crime of genocide. There is something else that in our days other than Azerbaijan supported by Turkey denies too: the right of Armenians to live in their... 15/03/2022 | 12:22:37 Dear Colleagues, Following the debate these days I cannot but ask myself where has our organisation been when a member State, Azerbaijan, unleashed a war against the Artsakh Republic, Nagorno-Karabakh, and let her occupy the sovereign territories of another member State, Armenia. Let everyone be reminded that in September 2020, Azerbaijan started a war to deprive the Armenian people of their right to live on their own historical lands. Turkish combat drones were used to kill thousands of...