Azeri pressure group declares OSCE envoy persona non grata over Karabakh visit

ANS TV, Baku
7 Jun 04

[Presenter] The Karabakh Liberation Organization [KLO] has
protested against the visit by the special representative of the
OSCE Parliamentary Assembly for Nagornyy Karabakh, Goran Lennmarker,
to Azerbaijan’s area of Karabakh via Armenia.

[Correspondent, over video of traffic in an unidentified area] The
special representative of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly for Nagornyy
Karabakh is now in Tbilisi. To recap, before this Lennmarker visited
Armenia and Azerbaijan’s region of Nagornyy Karabakh. He met the leader
of the Armenian community in Nagornyy Karabakh, Arkadiy Gukasyan.

The KLO issued a statement to say that Lennmarker’s visit to Karabakh
showed the OSCE’s pro-Armenian stance. According to the statement,
the OSCE representative showed no respect for the international legal
norms, Azerbaijan’s laws and territorial integrity. The KLO believes
there is no need for the operation in Azerbaijan of international
organizations which turn a blind eye to the fact that the Azerbaijani
people’s rights have been trampled over the past 16 years.

The statement said that Lennmarker and other representatives of
international organizations actually justify Armenia’s aggressive
policy. In its statement the KLO declared Goran Lennmarker, [the
rapporteur of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe
for the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict] Terry Davis and other lying
peace mediators persona non grata and stated that their visits to
Azerbaijan will be prevented by all possible means.

Mahir Mammadli, ANS.