{"id":2617,"date":"2017-09-25T14:11:46","date_gmt":"2017-09-25T14:11:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/?p=2617"},"modified":"2017-09-26T14:37:48","modified_gmt":"2017-09-26T14:37:48","slug":"armenian-delegation-in-baku-criticizes-azerbaijans-xenophobic-propaganda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/?p=2617","title":{"rendered":"Armenian Delegation in Baku Criticizes Azerbaijan\u2019s “Xenophobic Propaganda”"},"content":{"rendered":"

By BRADLEY JARDINE
\nEurasiaNet<\/em><\/p>\n

Two Armenian members of parliament have made a rare visit to Azerbaijan, where they spoke out against their hosts’ \u201cxenophobic propaganda\u201d and incurred the wrath of nationalist Azerbaijanis.<\/p>\n

The delegation was in Baku last week to take part in a session of the Euronest Parliamentary Assembly, a European Union body devoted to parliamentary cooperation with its partners in the former Soviet Union.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe came here because Euronest is an essential platform for us,\u201d said<\/a> Armen Ashotyan, the head of the two-member delegation. \u201cArmenia is about to sign a new agreement with the European Union. The other reason we came here is that such an event could have well been used for anti-Armenia rhetoric and propaganda in the presence of European MPs.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a speech to the assembly on September 22, Ashotyan also spoke<\/a> about \u201cArmenophobia and xenophobia\u201d in Azerbaijan’s school system, and gave a book titled \u201c\u2018Azerbaijan: Childhood in Hate\u2019 to the host country’s deputy education minister, Armenian media reported. It’s not known what the Azerbaijani official’s reaction was.<\/p>\n

The other delegate, Mane Tandilyan, said she toured Baku<\/a> with the aim of learning about Armenian sites there.<\/p>\n

\u201cTomorrow we\u2019re going to take a walk to different places in Baku to check the condition of the existing Armenian heritage,\u201d she said on September 22. She didn’t report back on her findings, except that she couldn’t get into Baku’s long-closed central Armenian church, but said<\/a> she would soon brief Armenians.<\/p>\n

An Armenian delegation also visited Baku the last time Euronest took place<\/a> there, in 2012, when \u201cheated discussions\u201d took place with their Azerbaijani counterparts over the territory of Nagorno Karabakh.<\/p>\n

Azerbaijan decided to boycott the Euronest event held in Yerevan in 2015, accusing Armenia of \u201caggressive criminal actions\u201d against it.<\/p>\n

This time, there appeared to be no face-to-face clashes, but controversy nevertheless dogged the visit. One Azerbaijani MP, Rafael Jabrayilov, called<\/a> for Azerbaijanis to take revenge against the Armenians. Jabrayilov was apparently offended by a photograph of the delegation members drinking in a hotel room.<\/p>\n

\u201cHad they been sitting in a restaurant and misbehaving there, any Azerbaijan would have hit the vodka bottle on their heads\u201d Jabrayilov said. \u201cTo be honest, if such a thing happened, this would have taken a thorn out of my heart.\u201d<\/p>\n

An unsanctioned protest<\/a> was organized against the arrival of Armenian MPs by activists from the \u201cLiberation of Karabakh\u201d movement. The protesters held up posters with slogans which read: \u201cArmenian occupiers, get out of Baku!\u201d and \u201cShame on those who called the Armenians to Baku!<\/p>\n

The two countries rarely interact on a diplomatic level and Armenians can not visit Baku except in special circumstances like this, as Baku’s consular authorities consistently deny visas to anyone with an Armenian name.<\/p>\n

Armenia did not send<\/a> a participant to the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest, held in Baku, but did send athletes<\/a> to the 2015 European Games in Baku. Armenia\u2019s 25 participating athletes did not take part in the opening ceremony, and instead travelled to Baku only for individual competitions.<\/p>\n

More recently, a group of little-known Armenians appeared in Baku for an ill-fated \u201cPeace Platform,”<\/a> which ultimately ended in mutual recriminations<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Originally posted by EurasiaNet.org<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By BRADLEY JARDINE EurasiaNet Two Armenian members of parliament have made a rare visit to Azerbaijan, where they spoke out against their hosts’ \u201cxenophobic propaganda\u201d [more >>>]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2618,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-conflicts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2617"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2617\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2619,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2617\/revisions\/2619"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}