Ahmad Shahidov, Head of the Azerbaijani Institute for Democracy and Human Rights (AIDHR) attends the gathering
The 21st OSCE Ministerial Council gathering started in Basel, Switzerland on December 4. The meeting is attended by foreign ministers of 57 OSCE member states and officials of OSCE. Making opening remarks Didier Burkhalter, OSCE Chairperson-in-Office for 2014 and Head of the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs talked about OSCE principles and measures carried out up until now. Aftermath, OSCE Parliamentary Assembly President and Secretary General welcomed attendees.
Following the official opening remarks Elmar Mammadyarov, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Azerbaijan took the floor for making a speech. Ahmad Shahidov, Head of the Azerbaijani Institute for Democracy and Human Rights (AIDHR) attends the gathering as well. In his statement with regard to the meeting he noted that the gathering will have heated discussions and main issue will be territorial integrity of the OSCE countries. The statement reads: “The 21st OSCE Ministerial Council meeting will mainly focus on Ukrainian issue. Beyond this, ensuring peace in the OSCE member states and prosperity will be prime issues of the agenda as well. It is expected that much speech will be made on the Ukrainian issue. Naturally enough if we are talking about territorial integrity so Nagorno-Karabakh conflict will be in the center of attention too. Its no coincide that while making his opening remarks Didier Burkhalter, OSCE Chairperson-in-Office mentioned Nagorno-Karabakh conflict together with Ukrainian crises. This once again indicates that much attention will be paid to Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, namely territorial integrity of Azerbaijan in the frame of the 21st OSCE Ministerial Council meeting”.
