Schieder awarded the medal of Honorary Member of the Council of Europe to President Aliyev for \"active cooperation\" with the Council of Europe. Aliyev became the second politician to receive this honor.
Ilham Aliyev also spoke at the PACE’s session in Strasbourg. He informed deputies about economic reforms, prospects of utilization of oil incomes for non-oil sector development, and implementation of political reforms. Aliyev spoke about the role and importance of Azerbaijan in the implementation of large international projects, and the country’s active involvement in the resolution of global problems and tasks, such as the struggle against international terrorism.
Despite these successful meetings, the visit was overshadowed by a scandal on the last day of the session. During the voting on a bill that would allow the unrecognized Northern Cyprus republic to establish its representation at the Council of Europe, all Azerbaijani delegates except one were absent. The bill was defeated and the Turkish delegation accused their Azeri “brothers” of betraying them.
The topic quickly developed into headlines in the Turkish press. The influential daily Hurriyet accused Azerbaijan and its leadership of killing the bill and not supporting Turkish national interests. Similarly, the opposition press in Azerbaijan rushed to slam Ilham Aliyev’s foreign policy and its inconsistency. “Sell-out action from the regime,” exclaimed oppositional daily Yeni Musavat.
The scandal was connected to a statement made by Ilham Aliyev during his visit to Turkey two weeks earlier, where he said that should the referendum on the unification of Cyprus fail, Azerbaijan would be one of the first countries to render international recognition to the Turkish part of the island. The opposition went furious after these remarks. “This could be a bad precedent for Nagorno-Karabakh,” said Musavat party activist Hikmet Haji-Zade.
Meanwhile, ruling party member Samed Seidov, who is also heading the Azerbaijani delegation to the Council of Europe, denied all accusations. “First of all, the bill was rejected by more than two dozens votes. The votes of six Azerbaijani delegates would not matter much,” he told ANS TV. On May 4, members of the Azerbaijani Parliament (Milli Mejlis) demanded that Seidov explain the absence of the delegation members at the PACE session. TURAN news service reported that Seidov\'s answer was sensational. The head of delegation stated that the Azerbaijani delegation deliberately did not participate in the session, because it could create a precedent for the “recognition of unrecognized regimes”.
Another member of the Azerbaijani delegation to PACE, Asim Mollazade of the oppositional Popular Front party, said in an interview to Echo newspaper that “there was a serious reason for this action.” Mollazadeh noted that all delegates were free in their actions at all times and that he personally preferred to be absent so as to avoid creating a negative precedent for the separatist regime in Karabakh. “Separatist regimes in Karabakh, Abkhazia and other places have also requested to open an office at PACE, so voting on the issue on Northern Cyprus could damage the national interests of Azerbaijan.”
Official Baku hopes that the incident will not hurt bilateral political relations with Turkey. Azerbaijan’s ambassador to Ankara was instructed to explain the situation to the Turkish public and media. “Someone is interested to hurt the bilateral relations between the two brotherly countries. But they will not succeed. Azerbaijan and Turkey have always supported each other and will continue doing so in the future,” said Seidov.
Book S. Frederick Starr and Svante E. Cornell,