Currently, the access of 335 persons to Azerbaijan is prohibited. The Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry has issued the list of people declared “personae non grata”. This “black list” includes people who have visited NKR. For example, the member of the British House of Lords and Baroness Caroline Cox, political scientist Sergey Markedonov, head of the Institute of CIS Countries Konstantin Zatulin, the French Senator Valerie Boyer, famous opera singer Montserrat Caballé, member of the Parliament of the Islamic Republic Ruben Vardanyan, members of the Slovak Parliament and the Russian Duma, and singer Philip Kirkorov’s father, Bedros Kirkorov. In 2015, Azerbaijan also declared renowned Lyubov Kazarnovskaya a personae non grata.
Note that 4 persons were removed from this list. For example, the RF State Duma member Alexei Mitrofanov, head of the Russian bureau for the “Voice of America” James Brooke, Johns Hopkins University students Ivan Benovich and Nicholas Bondru. This happened after the mentioned people have appealed to the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry stating that they regret for what has happened.
Aghasi Yenokyan
Aravot.am asked the Director of the “Armenian Center for Political and International Relations”, Aghasi Yenokyan, of whether Azerbaijan from the international point of view has the right to set up such a list, Mr. Yenkoyan replied, “In the legal sense, yes, since Azerbaijan recognizes Nagorno-Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan and whoever has entered Karabakh, he is passing by this border, so they are considered illegal border infringements. It is good that they issue the list and not like Georgia that whenever they saw a stamp of entering Abkhazia, these people were arrested.”
To our curiosity of whether this politics does not do harm to Azerbaijan’s international rating and does not work against this very country, Mr. Yenokyan replied, “One way or another, Azerbaijan’s rating is dropped in the eyes of the international community. While it is hard to say about this politics. In any case, Azerbaijan defends its national interests. Many people do not visit Karabakh because of fear, and as to how Azerbaijan benefits from it, it is hard to say.”
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We were curious to learn the reason of why mainly Russians were removed from the list of “persona non grata”, Mr. Yenokyan replied, “It fits within the thawing of Russian-Azerbaijani relations developing in recent years.”
Tatev HARUTYUNYAN
