Baku Sun, Azerbaijan
June 25 2004
Cold reception for Armenians
by Zulfugar Agayev (Staff Writer)
A protester is held back at Baku’s Grand Hotel Europe
earlier this week. The arrival of Armenian officers
in Baku for a NATO conference angered many
Azerbaijani citizens. (Photo from TURAN Information Agency)
BAKU – While the Azerbaijani army was grieving for its loss of a
23-year-old officer, Lieutenant Teymur Panahov, who fell victim to an
Armenian sniper bullet early Tuesday, several young Azeris broke into
a Baku-hosted NATO conference the same day in protest of Armenian
participation at the controversial event.
According to the press office of Azerbaijan’s ministry of defense,
the officer Panahov received a fatal wound to the head, in
Dashsalahli village, of the western Qazakh District bordering
Armenia.
Outraged by the arrival of two Armenian officers in Baku – Colonel
Murad Isakhanyan and Senior Lieutenant Aram Hovhanesian – a group of
activists from the Karabakh Liberation Organization (KLO) managed to
push through police cordons and stormed into the capital’s Grand
Hotel Europe, where the conference was taking place.
As a result, the conference was halted for about ten minutes before
police arrested 12 protestors. The protestors broke several glass
windows of the hotel while fighting to get into the conference hall.
There was no report of serious injuries on either side as a result of
the incident.
A criminal case was filed against five of the arrested KLO members,
including the chairman of the organization, Akif Naghi, on charges of
hooliganism. A KLO deputy chairman, Shamil Mehdi, said that the
spirit of all those arrested is high and that they do not feel any
repentance for their action.
The planning conference for NATO’s `Cooperative Best Effort-2004′
military exercises, which are planned to be held in Azerbaijan in
September, brought together 21 NATO member states and partners on
Tuesday and Wednesday.
Several non-governmental organizations in Baku, particularly the KLO,
had warned the Armenian delegation against attending the Baku
conference. They accused the Armenian officers of participating in
the occupation of Azerbaijan’s territories in the 1991-94 war,
slaughtering over 20,000 Azerbaijanis and expelling nearly 1 million
people from their homes.
Armenian delegation failed to show up at a similar Baku-hosted NATO
conference in January for reasons still unclear.
The arrival of the Armenians also angered members of Milli Majlis
(parliament).
`These [Armenian] officers might have gained their military ranks for
their services during the war against Azerbaijan,’ Zahid Oruc, an MP
from the pro-government Motherland party, said during a parliamentary
meeting on Tuesday.
Another MP, Sabir Rustamkhanli, from the opposition Citizens’
Solidarity Party, said it was a disgrace to have allowed officers of
an enemy army, `whose hands are imbrued with Azerbaijani blood,’ to
visit Baku.
Although the parliamentary speaker, Murtuz Aleskerov, sought to sooth
the ire of the legislators by saying that the Armenian officers have
arrived in the Azeri capital secretly, the ministry of foreign
affairs was quick to respond that the officers have nor arrived
underhandedly at all.
A statement by the foreign ministry on Wednesday said that Deputy
Foreign Minister Araz Azimov had made a statement about the
Armenians’ expected visit three days before the conference opened on
Tuesday.
Ali Hasanov, head of the social-political department at the
president’s apparatus, on Wednesday said that the anger among the
Azerbaijani public over the Armenian officer’s visit to Baku is
understandable. However, Hasanov noted that the public has to take
into account the situation of the Azerbaijani state as well.
`It is possible to protest. Through this, we express our protest
against the occupation of our lands. But this protest should not be
demonstrated by breaking windows of the hotel where the conference is
held,’ Hasanov told reporters.
Anger among ordinary citizens was also obvious.
`What are the Armenians seeking here?’ asked Imarat Abbsova, 50, an
internally displaced woman from the occupied Aghdam District. `How
can they come here and sit with us at the same table after all that
they have done against us?’
KLO activists put the blame on Azerbaijan’s government for their
failure to impede the Armenian officers’ coming to Baku.
`The Azerbaijani government should have placed a clear demand on NATO
to prevent Armenian officers coming to Azerbaijan until they stop
occupying our territories,’ Barat Imani, a deputy KLO chairman, told
Baku Sun.
`The Armenian flag waving in Baku was an insult against the people of
Azerbaijan,’ said Imami in response to the Armenian flag, along with
those of the other attending NATO countries at the conference being
mounted outside Grand Hotel Europe in Baku.
Imani also accused international organizations, including NATO, of
double standards, urging them to `call the aggressor by its real
name.’
An MP from the opposition Compatriot party, Mais Safarli, also
believes that the government should have stopped the Armenians’
participating in the Baku conference.
`It was disrespectful to the souls of our martyrs. Armenian officers’
hands have been stained with our martyrs’ blood,’ said Safarli.
The MP promised that he would demand the parliament to release the
arrested KLO members.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress