BAKU, Azerbaijan, January 16. Azerbaijan Press Council has expressed hope for objective and impartial highlighting of the rally on the Lachin-Khankendi road in the world media, Trend reports citing the council’s statement.
According to the statement, the presentation of the peaceful protest rally of Azerbaijani activists and representatives of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) on the mentioned road in a number of world media causes serious concern among both various sectors of society and representatives of Azerbaijani journalism.
“Such an interpretation of the events is nothing but an attempt to distort reality, an abuse of freedom of speech and expression, bias and non-objectivity of a number of Western media,” the statement said.
“Karabakh is a sovereign, internationally recognized territory of Azerbaijan. Armenians living in the region are also legally citizens of our country, but ‘thanks to’ the financial support of Armenian lobbying and diaspora organizations, as well as the puppet ‘state minister’ of the so-called Karabakh regime Ruben Vardanyan, some world media create the impression that the rally of Azerbaijani activists on the Lachin-Khankendi road poses a threat to the right of Karabakh Armenians to life,” the statement noted.
“Against this background, such false patterns are being exploited as a humanitarian catastrophe, the genocide of Azerbaijanis against the Armenian population, ethnic cleansing, blockade of 120,000 Armenians, 30,000 of which are children, seriously ill in hospitals in Khankendi,” the statement further said. “Such information is completely false and doesn’t reflect reality, because the protest of Azerbaijani activists has a specific goal - the rally in no way pursues the goal of blockade of Karabakh, and there are no obstacles for the passage of humanitarian convoys to the region to and from Khankendi.”
“The rally on the Lachin-Khankendi road has been going on for more than a month. If the mentioned mass media had not become captives of the Armenian propaganda, if they had treated the situation somewhat impartially, they would have paid attention to the essence of the patterns and determined the situation in the region. Unfortunately, we see a manifestation of unprofessionalism, and this method is a distant from reality, an obvious manipulation,” the statement pointed out.
“It’s also regrettable that manipulations are allowed consciously or unconsciously by the media which have influence on the public opinion of the world and Europe, are guided by a pluralism of opinions, and declare that their activities serve human values. Their articles are practically the same, the biased claims, sometimes even the sentences are also the same,” the statement said.
“Objective media would have studied the personality of Vardanyan, and would have reported on the large financial fraud behind the shoulders of this character, on his proximity to criminal circles, its illegal and criminal activities. This would be an example of the fulfillment of the functions and duties of the media and a model of serving human values,” the statement noted.
The Azerbaijan Press Council has called on the world's leading media to give an objective assessment of the rally on the Lachin-Khankendi road, draw attention to real facts, and not be an instrument of one-sided and biased propaganda.
“They should take into account that this rally, in general, is very important in terms of a fair international presentation of the conflict situation between Azerbaijan and Armenia, the formation of peace, trust and an atmosphere of peaceful coexistence in the South Caucasus region as a whole," concluded the statement.
The peaceful protest on the Lachin-Khankendi road against the illicit exploitation of Azerbaijan's mineral resources in the area of Russian peacekeepers' temporary deployment has been going on for over a month.
Previously, following the talks with the Russian peacekeepers' command on December 3 and 7, 2022, a group of experts from the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources, the State Property Service under the Ministry of Economy, and AzerGold CJSC were going to begin preliminary monitoring of the illicit mineral resource exploitation, as well as emerging environmental implications on Azerbaijani lands, where the Russian peacekeepers are temporarily deployed, on December 10, 2022.
The expert team was expected to inspect the environmental condition at the 'Gizilbulagh' gold deposit and the 'Damirli' copper-molybdenum deposit, monitor various areas, organize cadastral property records, assess potential risks and threats to the environment, as well as to underground and surface water sources.
However, when arriving in the monitoring area, the expert group, accompanied by Russian peacekeepers, faced provocations. The planned initial inspection and monitoring did not take place due to the fact that the Russian peacekeepers not only did not create necessary conditions but also prevented for the entire process to carry on.