On April 5th First Vice-Speaker of Azerbaijan`s parliament Ziyafat Asgarov met a delegation of Congress of Local and Regional Authorities.
Asgarov pointed out that Azerbaijan paid special attention to developing democracy after regaining its independence.
"This issue was enshrined in the country`s Constitution adopted in 1995. Municipalities were given more power with the amendments and supplements made to the Constitution two years ago."
Asgarov noted: "Great work has been done to fulfill constitutional requirements, a number of laws regulating activity of local authorities have been adopted. There are great opportunities to expand relations between the municipalities and governmental and non-governmental organizations."
Head of the European delegation Gudrun Mosler-Tornstrom said the organization`s observation mission visited Azerbaijan in 2003 to conduct a monitoring.
She said Azerbaijan changed a lot since then.
Mosler-Tornstrom said their current visit was aimed at familiarizing themselves with the state of democracy, development of municipalities in Azerbaijan, and monitoring the country`s fulfillment of recommendations of the Congress` monitoring group.
She said the visit would see the delegation have meeting in a number of public bodies and non-governmental organizations.
Mosler-Tornstrom added a report would be prepared on the results of the visit, and would be discussed by the Congress` monitoring committee in June.

AzerTAc