On Monday, OSCE Office in Baku, Central Election Commission and the President’s Office have organized an informative session in Shirvan for the heads of executive powers of 18 towns and regions, as well as for chairmen of 30 district election commissions on the cases of interference into the election process. Head of OSCE Office in Baku Jose Luis Herrero Ansola has emphasized the importance of observing the main principles of free and transparent elections and prevention of interference into the election process, APA Mil-Mugan bureau reports.

Baku Office of the Council of Europe will organize a number of trainings on the upcoming presidential elections in Azerbaijan, Veronica Kotek, special representative of the Secretary General of the Council of Europe in Azerbaijan told journalists, APA reports. He said 6 trainings were organized for the journalists and their goal was a professional coverage of the elections. The trainings will be organized for the members of the election commissions as well.

Azerbaijani IDPs have sent 500 appeals against Armenia to European Court of Human Rights, Khanlar Hajiyev, Azerbaijani judge to European Court of Human Rights told journalists, APA reports
To him, proper questions on the case have been sent to Armenian and Azerbaijani Governments.
“Decision on appeals will be passed soon,” he said. Hajiyev added that Armenians moved from Azerbaijan had sent 500 appeals to European Court of Human Rights against Azerbaijan.

The Venice Commission highlights problems in the Electoral Code of Azerbaijan with regards to the formation of election commissions.
“Key problem in the Electoral Code of Azerbaijan is to form election commissions,” Secretary of the Venice Commission, Gianni Buquicchio, briefed the media in Baku on 14 July.
Existing composition of the commissions does not create conditions for equal participation of all candidates, Buquicchio said.
The parliament of Azerbaijan passed the Bill on Supplements and Changes to the Election Code on 2 June. According to the Bill, the presidential candidates are prohibited to conduct election campaign in state-owned TV channels, radios and newspapers with the term of the election campaign being shortened from four months up to 75 days.

Azerbaijan is hopeful that France will intensify its efforts as a co-chairman of OSCE Minsk Group to resolve Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
“We hope that France will increase efforts to help achieve the soonest possible and just solution to Azerbaijan’s conflict with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh, sparked as a result of military aggression against our country,” President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev said in his congratulatory message on Bastille Day to his French counterpart Nicolas Sarkozy.
The congratulatory message described the relations between Azerbaijan and France as ‘successfully developing’.

Organization of Specialists Educated Abroad Azerbaijan (AKTAM) and the Association for Civil Society Development in Azerbaijan (ACSDA) have drafted a bill “On educational credits” and submitted it to the Milli Majlis of the Azerbaijan Republic. The purposes of the drafted bill are the establishment of state assistance system for increasing equal opportunities and guaranties for educational credits, effective economic mechanisms of financing higher professional education and getting qualitative education The bill consists of 4 sections and 20 items. The sections have been devoted to common regulations, agreement on educational credits, financing the expenses on state support to the educational credits and state assistance to the transfer of education to a credit system. The purposes and a controlled object of the bill, as well as its basic conceptions have been indicated in the items of section 1 named “Common regulations”.