Bloomberg
March 7 2012
Armenia Pulls Out From Eurovision Contest in Arch-Foe Azerbaijan
By Zulfugar Agayev – Mar 7, 2012 1:53 PM GMT+0200
Armenia withdrew from the Eurovision Song Contest, the world’s
most-watched singing competition, that’s scheduled to be held in May
in Baku, the capital of arch- foe Azerbaijan, the organizers said.
`Despite the efforts of the European Broadcasting Union and the host
broadcaster to ensure a smooth participation for the Armenian
delegation in this year’s contest, circumstances beyond our control
led to this unfortunate decision,’ Jan Ola Sand, the executive
supervisor of the competition, said on the official Eurovision website
today.
The Caspian Sea nation gained the right to host the event by winning
first place at the festival in Dusseldorf last year. Oil-rich
Azerbaijan fought a war with Armenia over Nagorno- Karabakh, a
majority Armenian-populated enclave that broke free from Baku’s
control following the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991.
The territory remains a potential flash point in a region where Russia
fought a five-day war with Georgia in 2008 after separatist tensions
flared up over the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.