BAKU, March 17 (RIA Novosti, Gerai Dadashev) - A high-ranking Western official said Friday that the European Union would continue to oversee the election process in Azerbaijan.
EU Special Envoy for the South Caucasus Peter Semnebi, a Swiss diplomat, told a news conference at the end of his visit to the republic that the EU would monitor Azerbaijani parliamentary by-elections in May, regardless of whether its observers would officially attend the elections.
Semnebi said democracy and human rights would be the focus of the EU's "new neighborhood" policy in the region.
The EU initiated the European Neighbourhood Policy under the European Security Strategy, adopted by the EU in 2003. Azerbaijan and two other countries in the region, Georgia and Armenia, fall under the policy.
