Dear PresidentKrivokapić,First of all, the Swedish Delegation of the OSCE PA would like to wish you all thebest for this year as President of the OSCE PA. We are sure that you will be verysuccessful in your work.Considering your long experience of this organization, we are convinced that youwill take a number of wise decisions during the coming year, in close cooperationwith the Bureau. Recently, however, the Swedish Delegation has noticed yourdecision

not

to send a delegation from the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly to observethe presidential election in Azerbaijan on 16 October. The reason is reported to bethat this election will coincide with the Autumn Meetings in Montenegro.Of course we can understandthat for you, Mr Krivokapić,it is very important that asmany members of the Assembly as possible will have the opportunity to take part inthe Autumn Meetings, since they will be held in Montenegro, and you will be thehosting them.We can also understand that it would be hard and time-consuming work for theSecretariat. However, we are convinced that the Secretariat already had planned forand was prepared for one EOM to Azerbaijan and one EOM to Georgia, both inOctober. And we are also convinced that the Secretariat has the capability to carryout them both, as it has done before.A

small delegation

to Azerbaijan would not present a problem for the number ofparticipants to the Autumn Meetings, since a smaller number of members take part inthese meetings than in the annual Summer Sessions. We also think that theSecretariat could manage a small EOM. It would not be the first time that some ofthe members participate in election observations instead of meetings in theAssembly.

We urge you, Mr President, to reconsider this decision. Please discuss this matterwith the nine Vice-Presidents of the Assembly. As we understand it, one of themembers had already been promised to lead a delegation to Azerbaijan by the formerPresident.We would also like to point out that we believe that it is of the utmost importancethat our Assembly will continue to work towards improving human rights anddemocracy and to fight against corruption in all the 57 member states of ourAssembly. This includes the state Azerbaijan. Since election observation is a task ofhigh priority to our Assembly, we would not let a meeting occurring at the same timebe the reason for not sending a small delegation.This would also be a very bad signal to Azerbaijan – and to any other member state –which we also could read in the OSCE Sitroom Daily Morning Brief on 24 July,where the Vice Chair of the First Committee, Mr Azay Guliyev, Azerbaijan, saidregarding the OSCE PA´s opportunity to send even a small delegation (toAzerbaijan), that “the leadership of the Assembly probably has little concern aboutthe elections in Azerbaijan and therefore, there is no need for such a decision”.We find this very serious, since Mr Guliyev is now a member of the Bureau.We would also like to point out that the next Summer Session will take place inBaku, Azerbaijan,Trusting that you will understand the importance of changing your decision, theSwedish Delegation is ready to send four members to the Autumn Meetings inMontenegro and one – or as many members as permitted - to Azerbaijan for theimportant work of observing the presidential election on 16 of October.