“It is important that at least in this situation, the Azerbaijani delegation acts with specific denial that they do not share the approaches and estimates of this newspaper, and do not agree that the information published in the newspaper meet the reality”, such opinion was expressed by Armenia’s National Coordinator Boris Navasardyan, in the conversation with Aravot.am, referring to the sixth annual session of the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum held in Batumi (the Armenian delegation has already elected a new coordinator, Michael Hovhannisyan, which will soon be announced during the conference).
Note that during the conference, one of the Azerbaijani delegation members, Selim Babayev, created a scandal, after which the Azerbaijani press reported that it contained a disinformation. Today, the Steering Committee of the Forum acted on this matter. According to the announcement, Selim Babayev, is dismissed from the working group and deprived of his mandate, in other words, he can no longer participate in decision-making process, nor be invited to any work of the Forum during this year. Mr. Navasardyan informed that there has been no denial by Azerbaijani delegation until now, and “we can interpret this as an identical approach from the perspective of the delegation and the author of the article.”
Boris Navasardyan deemed the statement by the governing body appropriate and said, “The Steering Committee should be able to protect the reputation of the Forum, as this announcement contained disinformation about the Forum, as well as, allegedly, Georgian President has not attended the Forum because of this exhibition and that the exhibition was not agreed upon in advance.” In this respect, Mr. Navasardyan presented some clarifications. “It was well predicted, initially it was a part of the agenda of the Forum. The exhibition is organized by the Czech “People in need” organization, and the information that allegedly this organization is pro-Armenia had no grounds by the author of the article to include in the material, nor even in the statement of the Azerbaijani Ambassador to the Czech Republic. This organization probably works the least in Armenia.”
Boris Navasardyan also highlighted the fact that the media disseminating such misinformation was invited to cover especially the Forum and the recommendation for the media was made by the Azerbaijani National Coordinator. Hence, according to Navasardyan, “So, anything that is written in the newspaper, to some extent, the guarantor is also responsible for it. In this regard, some of the opinions that the publication of the newspaper has nothing to do with approaches of the Azerbaijani delegation are not convincing.”
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Among the many unsubstantiated accusations and distortion of facts, the aforementioned Azerbaijani news publication presents also allegedly Boris Navasardyan is standing behind all of this. Boris Navasardyan considered this a traditional style of Azerbaijan and said, “If a criticism from anywhere is voiced against Azerbaijan, and it sounds from different international instances, and since the Azerbaijani side does not admit this criticism and make fairly aggressive statements, they should find some explanation as to why. The easiest and short explanation, which they do not believe either is that all of that was organized by Armenians. The exhibition is taking place within the Forum and the national coordinator was Boris Navasardyan, so all of that was organized by him. If the CE is criticizing, then it is Armenians, if the OSCE is criticizing, then Armenians are lobbying, if the US government, then Armenians are behind it. Unfortunately, it has extended to the Forum, too.”
Boris Navasardyan pointed out one more important circumstance. The article, in addition to the rest of the lies, says that the Azerbaijani delegation has boycotted the Forum. In that case, it had no right to participate in all procedures planned by the Forum: to vote for the members of Steering Committee. But since they have voted, they should announce that the information in the article is misinformation, otherwise, in the meantime, when there was a procedure to vote, they cast doubt on it, and put the legitimacy of all procedures into question. The Azerbaijani side should declare firmly and publicly that they had not boycotted.”
Tatev HARUTYUNYAN
