BAKU: European Commission’s Move Angers Azeri Officials

EUROPEAN COMMISSION’S MOVE ANGERS AZERI OFFICIALS

Assa-Irada, Azerbaijan
March 29 2006

Baku, March 28, AssA-Irada
A row emerged after the European Commission indicated Azerbaijan’s
territories occupied by Armenia and the exclave of Nakhchivan as
Armenian territories on its website.

The Azeri representative at the EU Arif Mammadov has sent an enquiry
to the organization over this.

Mammadov said the European Commission has pledged to alter the data
on its web-page in a day’s time. He noted that the Azeri embassy in
Belgium is scrutinizing the reasons for the move.

“We are trying to establish whether the step resulted from negligence
or was taken on purpose. If this was done deliberately, the person
responsible will lose his job in the Commission,” the diplomat added.

This is not the first such mistake made by European organizations. A
map of the South Caucasus region uploaded to the European Parliament’s
website in February presented Upper Garabagh not as Azerbaijani,
but Armenian territory.