The new chairman of PACE, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, arrived to Ankara on February 1 to meet Turkish leaders. Chairman Çavuşoğlu was first received by President Abdullah Gül. The President said the election of a Turkish parliamentarian as the head of PACE is of vital importance in terms of illustrating Turkey’s international credibility and multilateral diplomacy that pursues peace and stability in its region.

Çavuşoğlu was later received by Turkey’s Parliament Speaker, Mehmet Ali Şahin, where he underscored the importance of human rights. Çavuşoğlu also said the Council of Europe (COE) attached utmost importance to the improvement of civil authority and considered the issue as one of the basic pillars of democracy, TRT reported.

Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe: the oldest international parliamentary assembly with a pluralistic composition of democratically elected members of parliament established on the basis of an intergovernmental treaty. The Assembly is one of the two statutory organs of the Council of Europe, which is composed of the Committee of Ministers (the Ministers of Foreign Affairs, meeting usually at the level of their deputies) and the Assembly representing the political forces (majority and opposition) in its member states.

The assembly has a total of 642 members – 321 principal members and 321 substitutes [1] - who are representatives of each member state. There are also 18 delegates from the Canadian, Israeli and Mexican observers. The size of each country determines its number of representatives and number of votes. This is in contrast in the committee of ministers, where each country has one vote.

Each State member selects its method of designating its representatives to the parliamentary assembly; however, they must be chosen from among the members of the respective Parliaments. Moreover, the political composition of each national delegation must reflect the representation of the different parties within the respective parliaments.