OPENING STATEMENT

OF MR MEVLÜT ÇAVUŞOĞLU

PRESIDENT OF THE PARLIAMENTARY ASSEMBLY

JANUARY 2011 PART-SESSION

(Strasbourg, Monday, 24 January 2011, 11h30 a.m.)

Dear colleagues,

First of all, thank you for your confidence and re-electing me as President of the Parliamentary Assembly. Let me assure you that I do not consider this re-election as a simple formality. It is for me a further encouragement, but also a reminder that I can only be your President as long as I represent your interests and the interests of this Assembly. This was how I acted all throughout the first year of my mandate and this is how I will continue to work.

We have started a New Year and today we start a new Assembly session. Let me take this opportunity to welcome you all to Strasbourg for another year of hard work and wish you and your families all the best for 2011.

Dear colleagues,

We can start our work with confidence based on the achievements of last year. In 2010 we continued to assist, through visits, reports or election observation, those member states presenting delicate political, institutional and human rights situations or facing consequences of armed conflicts. The fact that this assistance was largely welcomed by different political forces in the countries concerned, either in government or opposition, is proof of your objectivity, fairness and professionalism.

We also succeeded in concentrating on and dealing with issues which I consider as our priority, in particular:

- fighting against all forms of intolerance and discrimination, paying special attention to the rights of the Roma population;

- defending human rights of the most vulnerable groups in our societies, in particular children, women and also minorities and migrants;

- developing inter-cultural and inter-religious dialogue;

- supporting the reform of the Council of Europe and initiating the reform process in the Parliamentary Assembly;

- promoting accession of the European Union to the European Convention on Human Rights and engaging a dialogue with the European Parliament on the election of judges;

- bringing non-member states closer to the Council of Europe and our standards, particularly through the Partnership for Democracy status.

By doing so, I am convinced that our Assembly has gained respect in many parts of Europe. Our action has also obtained us more support in our national parliaments, which is of the utmost importance in the current context of budgetary restrictions in many member states. Convincing Speakers all around Europe of the need to support the activities of our Assembly has been a major item on the agendas of more that 40 official and working visits that I carried out in 2010.

Throughout last year, we continued to improve our institutional relations with other organs and bodies of the Council of Europe. We now enjoy excellent working relations with the Secretary General and have installed direct and personal contacts with the respective Chairs of the Committee of Ministers.

Dear colleagues,

However, I must also say that, despite our efforts, we could not achieve satisfactory results in some of our undertakings. In this connection, I think mainly about frozen conflicts in Europe. Negotiations concerning the settlement of these conflicts are mostly in the hands of career diplomats but parliamentary diplomacy plays an important role in creating a climate of trust and confidence, necessary for lasting solutions. Be it in Abkhazia, Transniestria, Nagorno-Karabakh, South Ossetia or on the island of Cyprus, it is difficult to see any meaningful progress in confidence-building over the last year. But we must and will continue our efforts because there is simply no other alternative.

Furthermore, in some member states, confrontations between the government and the opposition were seriously hampering the functioning of democratic institutions. In Albania, the existing tensions degenerated and resulted in the death of several persons last week. This is clearly unacceptable - people must not die as a result of political struggles. We have to be more active in supporting democratic changes through peaceful evolution. Therefore, we need to be more present in Tunisia. The people in the streets are sending a clear message - assist us to build a democratic society based on more equality and social justice.

Dear colleagues,

I said that our Assembly is becoming more relevant - and there is no better evidence of that than the agenda of this part-session. We shall welcome among us three Presidents – those of Turkey, Serbia and Romania, as well as the Prime Minister of Albania. They come, not just out of respect for our respectable body but also because we will deal with serious issues - reports on reconciliation in the Balkans, organ trafficking in Kosovo, the protection of journalist’s sources of information, just to name a few.

We have also received requests to hold important urgent debates. Besides that on the situation in Tunisia, the Bureau recommends to discuss the violence against Christians in the Middle East and Belarus.

Both topics are very close to my heart. Religious violence has been the scourge of humanity since the beginning of ages and it has caused millions of victims over centuries. Religious extremists have always been there to stain the humanistic and value-based message of the world’s main religions. We must clearly say that those killing in the name of religion are not believers, they are just fanatics and terrorists.

On Belarus, I still believe in achieving progress through contact and dialogue. However, this dialogue can hardly take place when people are imprisoned for obviously political reasons. Presidential candidates and human rights activists are still in prison today, some are suffering from bad health. They must be released immediately – it is only on this basis that we can continue our relations.

Dear colleagues,

Before I finish, I wish to remind you of an important commemoration which traditionally takes place during the January part-session. The date of the liberation of the Auschwitz extermination camp is not an ordinary event. It is a cruel reminder of what people can do to others if they deviate from universal human rights principles and start to categorize individuals, groups and whole nations as those who are or are not entitled to human rights.

Human rights and freedoms must be the same for all – this is what we stand for and it is against this criteria that we must measure the level of democracy in our societies today.

I wish you a successful and interesting week in Strasbourg,

Thank you for your attention.