Baku Today
June 22 2004

Police Disperses KLO’s anti-Armenian Rally in Baku, Arresting Akif Naghi

Baku Today 22/06/2004 17:23

Several members from the Karabakh Liberation Organization (KLO),
including its chairman Akif Naghi, were arrested on Tuesday after
they clashed with police near Baku’s Europe Hotel, where a planning
conference for NATO’s “Cooperative Best Effort-2004” military
training opened the same day.

About 100 KLO activists attempted to rally in front of the hotel in
protest of two Armenian participants of the conference, Firudin
Mammadov, a deputy KLO chairman, told the Baku Today. No immediate
comments were available from the police.
Mammadov said when the police prevented the protestors from
assembling in front of the hotel, a group of 15-20 young KLO
activists managed to broke into the hotel via a rear door, after
which the work of the conference was stopped for about ten minutes.

KLO had warned the Armenian officers, Colonel Murad Isakhanyan and
Senior Lieutenant Aram Hovhanesian from coming to Baku, with a KLO
activist threatening them with death.

KLO also blamed Azerbaijani authorities for letting the Armenian
officers – who have been involved in the occupation of Azerbaijan’s
territories – into the country.

Armenian officers had failed to show up in the first Baku-hosted
planning conference for the “Cooperative Best Effort-2004” exercises
in January. Armenian foreign ministry then put the blame on the
Azerbaijani government for not providing the Armenians with entry
visas. But the latter accused the Armenian side in response, saying
that Yerevan had already besmirched relations with Baku by occupying
one-fifth of Azerbaijan’ territories.