Armenian visit angers Azeris
BBC News
Sept 4 2004
Large parts of the Azeri media have staged an orchestrated protest
against the planned presence of military officers from neighbouring
Armenia at Nato-sponsored exercises later this month.
Leading private and independent daily newspapers on Saturday published
blank front pages under the words “The media of Azerbaijan protest
against the arrival in Baku of the Armenian military”.
The private TV station ANS stopped broadcasting for three hours,
showing a blank screen with the same protest message.
Official and pro-government media outlets have not joined the
protest. The Azerbaijani foreign ministry has said it has expressed
its concern to Nato over the Armenians’ presence, but refused to
lodge an official complaint.
‘Insult’
The protest was announced in a statement published in Friday’s papers
and signed by nine newspaper editors.
“We believe that the admission of the Armenian officers to Baku is
an insult to the Azerbaijani people,” it said.
There have been repeated outbursts of public anger against Armenia
ever since the war between Azerbaijani and Armenian-backed forces
over the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh in 1994.
The area is still under Armenian occupation and no peace deal has
been signed.
Earlier in the week, six members of a group campaigning for Karabakh
to be brought back under Azeri control, including its leader, were
sentenced to between four and five years in prison following protests
on 22 June against the Armenian officers’ visit.
The exercises, organised under Nato’s Partnership for Peace programme,
are scheduled for 13 to 26 September.