YEREVAN (Armenpress) — The Azerbaijani government has been bribing European lawmakers in an attempt to conceal its poor human rights record, former member of parliament and former Armenian delegate to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) Tatev Hayrapetyan on July 18 warned that Azerbaijan will continue its practices of bribing European officials, but more cautiously.
Azerbaijan’s infamous “Caviar Diplomacy” of systematic bribing, which helped conceal its human rights record, has led to investigations and convictions.
The European Parliament adopted a resolution on July 13 on recommendations for reform of the European Parliament’s rules on transparency, integrity, accountability and anti-corruption.
The resolution mentions violations by various countries and organizations, including the Azerbaijani government’s actions.
“…whereas Azerbaijan has conducted large-scale influence operations, involving strong suspicions of corruption, against members of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe; whereas Azerbaijan has managed to avert probes into its elections and whitewash its human rights record,” reads clause T of the resolution.
Hayrapetyan said, “The scandalous reports prove that Azerbaijan’s actions in PACE involve a broad network and that the head of the Azerbaijani delegation Samad Seyidov is directly involved in criminal activity. When we were going to Strasbourg the Azerbaijanis were already acting very cautiously. Nonetheless, the facts remain and Seyidov continues to lead the Azerbaijani delegation.”
