Paper criticizes Azeri Foreign Ministry’s stance on British MPs’ Karabakh visit

Zerkalo, Baku
23 Oct 04

Azerbaijani Deputy Foreign Minister Araz Azimov has refused to attend
a conference entitled “Armenia – the South Caucasus and foreign
policy challenges” because of provocative actions of its organizers,
Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry spokesman Matin Mirza told journalists on
22 October. He said that Azimov had refused to attend the conference in
the University of Michigan on 21-23 October because a representative
of the separatist regime of the so-called Nagornyy Karabakh Republic
was attending it.

Mirza said that representatives of the Karabakh separatists had not
been included in the list of the conference participants attached
to an invitation sent to Azimov. When it became known that they will
attend the conference after all, Azimov demanded that an invitation be
sent to Nizami Bahmanov, the leader of Nagornyy Karabakh’s Azerbaijani
community. The organizers, however, did not accept this proposal and
Azimov refused to attend the conference.

Mirza said that this position of the organizers testified to their
pro-Armenian stance. Their aim was to bring a representative of
official Baku and Karabakh separatists together at the aforesaid
conference and then make use of this event with all its political
consequences. [Passage omitted: other issues reported at the press
briefing]

At the press briefing Mirza also spoke about a British parliamentary
delegation’s visit to Nagornyy Karabakh on 20 October. The delegation
was led by Deputy Speaker of the British House of Lords Baroness
Caroline Cox, who is known for her pro-Armenian stance. [Passage
omitted: Britain says this was a private visit]

One should pay attention to some aspects of Mirza’s remarks which have
a direct link with the situation around Nagornyy Karabakh, to be more
precise, with the weakness of our position. Let us start with the
visit of the British parliamentary delegation to Nagornyy Karabakh
which is, in fact, a minor, but not less painful fact. It appears
that if Baroness Cox and Co. visited Nagornyy Karabakh at their own
initiative and this visit does not reflect London’s official position,
everything is normal and there is no problem here. Well, gentlemen,
what a careless or, to be more precise, criminally careless attitude
to your own sovereignty over the country’s territory?

[Passage omitted: Azerbaijan has visa-free regime only with CIS
countries]

But this is very simple issue. Instead of expressing satisfaction with
the explanations from the British side, there was a need for informing
the British Foreign Office that Baroness Cox committed a crime under
the Azerbaijani Criminal Code with all ensuing consequences. No
matter in this case whether the positions of Baroness Cox and of
official London on the Karabakh settlement coincide or not. How one
could trust our decisiveness to thwart illegal activities on the
territories occupied by Armenia, if the aforesaid is our attitude to
observing Azerbaijan’s sovereignty?

[Passage omitted: more criticism on the Foreign Ministry’s activity]