AZERI DEFENCE MINISTRY ACCUSES ARMENIAN CHURCH OF TERROR PLOT

Azeri Press Agency, Azerbaijan
Nov 2 2007

2 November: Some missionary organizations and foreign intelligence
services, with the financial and moral support of Armenian churches,
are carrying out a policy of religious terror against Azerbaijan.

The Azerbaijani Defence Ministry’s information department has told
APA that Armenia’s special services have short-term and long-term
plans to sow seeds of religious discrimination, intolerance and
extremism among Azerbaijani citizens, increase the role of missionary
organizations with the aim of fighting Islamic religious values and
ethics, disseminate ideas that blacken Islam, and turn Azerbaijan
into a scene of religious struggle.

[The Holy See of] Echmiatsin in Armenia, [the Holy See of Cilicia in]
Antilyas in Lebanon and churches in Jerusalem that are considered
to be the main religious strongholds of Armenia’s terrorist policy,
are coordinating activities of Armenians living in various countries
and of [Armenian Revolutionary Federation] Dashnaktsutyun, Hnchak
[Social-Democratic Party of Armenia] and Ramkavar [Azatakan Party]
and some other political-terrorist organizations and groups.

The information department said that Armenian churches have close
contacts with the Greater Grace Church, Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Gideon
Brotherhood, the New Apostolic Church, Voice of Hope, Seventh-day
Adventist Church, World Vision, the Baku Bible Institute, IHTUS,
and Nehemia charity organization. The majority of these organizations
have been banned for different reasons in some European countries.

Armenian terrorists’ information and subversive activity is aimed at
causing artificial religious conflicts in Azerbaijan, systematically
bringing topics of subversive nature to the agenda, attempting to
degrade ethnic and moral values and causing sectarian forces’ revolt
against secularism in Azerbaijan.

"Some local ‘experts’ that sold themselves to missionary organizations
published in some media outlets biased and groundless reports alleging
that sectarians have infiltrated the Azerbaijani armed forces. By doing
so they play into the enemy’s hands, manipulate and distort facts,
raise this topic and damage the country’s image in the international
arena," the department said.