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Artak Zakaryan - the chairman of the Armenian National Assembly’s standing committee on foreign relations, the head of the Armenian delegation to Euronest Parliamentary Assembly – considers the decision of Azerbaijan’s Mlli Majlis not to participate in sittings of Euronest as blackmail.

Azerbaijani mass media reported that Milli Majlis took that decision in response to the September 10 resolution of the European Parliament concerning Azerbaijan.

“It is not a strange or unexpected move for us. It is a second case of blackmail of this kind practiced by Azerbaijan with regard to the European Parliament. It is blackmail, you cannot call it otherwise. The European Parliament adopted a resolution on the human rights situation, and Baku should have been grateful to Europarliament for indicating problems and urging a dialog. Yet in response to that, Azerbaijan is using a language of blackmail, trying to take publicly a position of the offended side,” Artak Zakaryan said in an interview with Panorama.am.

In his words, such actions of Azerbaijan are aimed at ‘winning the Europeans’ favor and making them adopt a softer position”.
“They believe that Europeans – for the sake of the Eastern Partnership – will turn a blind eye to antidemocratic processes in Azerbaijan,” A. Zakaryan said.

As was reported, on September 10, 2015 the European Parliament adopted a resolution calling for targeted sanctions against Azerbaijani officials who violate human rights. The draft was written by ALDE faction and sparked a heated discussion over the issue of putting the resolution to vote. The resolution was adopted by a vote of 365-202, with 72 abstentions. On September 11 Azerbaijani foreign ministry issued a statement that Azerbaijan will revise its relations with the EU, while the head of EU Office in Azerbaijan Malena Mard was summoned to Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry.