BRUSSELS -- The European Union is urging Azerbaijan to implement reforms in the fields of elections, freedom of assembly, and the media ahead of the country's presidential election in April.
EU foreign-policy chief Federica Mogherini said that "the European Union has always stressed, as we did it again, that the full implementation of international obligations and commitments by Azerbaijan is vital to us."
Mogherini was speaking in Brussels on February 9 after a meeting of the EU-Azerbaijan cooperation council, which was attended by Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Eldar Mammadyarov.
Sources in Brussels told RFE/RL that EU officials raised a number of individual human rights cases, including that of opposition politician Ilqar Mammadov, who has been in prison in Azerbaijan since 2014.
Late last year, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe launched a procedure to sanction Azerbaijan for failing to implement a 2014 European Court of Human Rights ruling that found Baku had violated Mammadov's human rights.
