Baku, Azerbaijan, July 10
By Seba Aghayeva - Trend:
The names of Russian opera singer Lyubov Kazarnovskaya and entrepreneur German Sterligov have been included in the list of undesirable people of the Azerbaijani foreign ministry, spokesman for the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry Hikmet Hajiyev told Trend July 10.
"Sterligov has a controversial biography," he said. "Before going to the territories of Azerbaijan occupied by Armenia, he could not be unaware that these territories are a favorable place for money laundering through the banking system of Armenia and criminal activity."
"Sterligov is notorious for his inflammatory statements on ethnic and religious grounds," he said. "Being in Azerbaijani town of Shusha occupied by Armenia, his statements about "human values" are beyond any moral, ethical and legal framework. The person speaking of "human values" would have understood that more than one million Azerbaijani people have been expelled as a result of Armenia's bloody ethnic cleansing peculiar to the fascist ideology."
"Sterligov's provocative statement of holding a press-conference in the occupied territories is nothing else but an unsuccessful attempt to self-promotion and advertising of the criminal regime, in which he is involved," he said.
"The Azerbaijani foreign ministry urges the media representatives not to succumb to provocations and to reject the illegal visits to the occupied territories," he said.
The media representatives' illegal visits to the occupied territories of Azerbaijani are a gross violation of the law on the state border of Azerbaijan and accreditation rules envisaged for the foreign media representatives. If they make illegal visits, these media representatives will be included in a list of undesirable people of the Azerbaijani foreign ministry.
The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.
The two countries signed a ceasefire agreement in 1994. The co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group, Russia, France and the US are currently holding peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented the UN Security Council's four resolutions on the liberation of the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding regions.
Edited by CN