Council of Europe Secretary General Alain Berset on Wednesday highlighted that Europe’s geopolitical centre of gravity is shifting east.

Axar.az reports speaking in Monaco, where the Principality hosted the first meeting of the Committee of Ministers after the summer break in the context of its Presidency of the Committee of Ministers, the Secretary General said that "the geopolitical centre of gravity of Europe is shifting eastwards along the 39th parallel north. That axis runs through four member states.”

Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia and Turkiye stand at the crossroads of the war in Ukraine, the war in the Middle East, and political and economic shifts in Central Asia whose scale, he said, Europe has not yet absorbed.

One year after the Washington Declaration, he said Azerbaijan and Armenia have a genuine opportunity to turn progress into lasting peace, and Armenia and Turkiye have taken steps towards normalised relations.

On Turkiye, the largest member state by population and holder of NATO’s second-largest military force, he was direct: "No serious conversation about security and also democratic security on this continent takes place without it."