Մատչելիության հղումներ

Azerbaijan Sends Diplomatic Note Over Visit Of Bulgarian MPs To Karabakh


A flag waving in front of the Government House in Baku, Azerbaijan (file photo)
A flag waving in front of the Government House in Baku, Azerbaijan (file photo)

The Embassy of Azerbaijan in Sofia has sent a note of protest to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Bulgaria over the visit of two Bulgarian lawmakers to Nagorno-Karabakh.

As quoted by Azerbaijani media, the diplomatic mission reminded that Valeri Simeonov had already been on Azerbaijan’s “black list” banning him from entering Azerbaijan after twice visiting Nagorno-Karabakh without Baku’s permission.

The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry said another Bulgarian lawmaker, Iordan Apostolov, will be declared a a persona non grata for his recent unauthorized visit to the de-facto Armenian-run region that official Baku considers to be its territory.

The two Bulgarian lawmakers were in the Nagorno-Karabakh capital of Stepanakert on August 6-7. There they reportedly met with Nagorno-Karabakh Parliament Speaker Ashot Ghulian.

According to an official statement of Nagorno-Karabakh’s de-facto authorities, “during the meeting the guests expressed their readiness to support the fraternal Armenian nation in all its initiatives.”

Armenia and Azerbaijan are locked in a dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh, an Armenian-populated region that has been de-facto independent from Baku after a three-year war in the early 1990s, in which an estimated 30,000 people were killed and hundreds of thousands were displaced.

Despite a 1994 ceasefire, loss of life has continued in the conflict zone in recurrent border skirmishes and sporadic fighting.

The internationally mediated peace process has so far failed to produce a lasting settlement of the conflict.

Azerbaijan has blacklisted hundreds of foreign nationals, including politicians, journalists, businessmen, artists and others, who visited Nagorno-Karabakh in recent years without Baku’s visa or official warrant, thus banning them from entering Azerbaijan.

In 2017, Russian-Israeli blogger Alexander Lapshin, who had twice visited Nagorno-Karabakh, was convicted in Azerbaijan for illegal border crossing after being extradited from Belarus. The Russian who also held a Ukrainian passport was sentenced to three years in prison, but was eventually pardoned by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev.

Russian, Israeli and Armenian government officials and a number of international organizations had condemned the extradition of the blogger from Belarus to Azerbaijan and the violation of his rights by Baku, calling for his release.

Facebook Forum

XS
SM
MD
LG