A delegation from the Council of Europe (CoE) Venice Commission has canceled its slated visit to Azerbaijan,  reported Haqqin.az news agency of Azerbaijan. 

“No reasons for the cancellation of this visit have been given.

“A delegation from the Venice Commission was scheduled to make a visit to Azerbaijan on November 13-14 to hold discussions with representatives of different authorities as well as with representatives of civil society organizations within the framework of the preparation of an opinion on the Law on Non-Governmental Organizations of Azerbaijan, as amended recently.

“The draft opinion was supposed to be submitted to the Venice Commission for adoption at its plenary session in December 2014,” the source informed.

In all likelihood, the cancellation of this visit is linked to the most recent incident that occurred on the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic-Azerbaijan Line of Contact.   

An NKR Air Force helicopter was shot down on Wednesday, and as a result of ceasefire violation by the Azerbaijani armed forces. The helicopter was downed during a training flight in the airspace of the eastern sector of the Karabakh-Azerbaijan Line of Contact. As a result, three pilots were killed: The commander of the helicopter, Major Sergey Sahakyan, and Senior Lieutenant Sargis Nazaryan and Lieutenant Azat Sahakyan. The OSCE Minsk Group, Armenia MFA, European Union, and United Nations representatives already have condemned this incident.