In the interview with Aravot.am, political scientist Gagik Hambaryan, referring to Vahan Martirosyan’s request for political asylum in Azerbaijan, described this country as follows: “No matter how the Republic of Armenia is a non-democratic country, we are ten times democratic and ten times higher than Azerbaijan. Do you realize the degree of the totalitarian regime in Azerbaijan that even the ambassadors who are recalled to Baku do not want to return to Azerbaijan? This is the level of Azerbaijan. The Diplomats do not know what they will get by returning to Baku and prefer to seek political asylum in Australia, Belgium, Holland … This is a disgrace, this shows the intolerant atmosphere that exists in Azerbaijan. Even in the government, in the ruling pyramid, the ambassadors having not low position refuse to return to Azerbaijan.
Currently, the Ambassador of Azerbaijan to Spain, Altay Efendiyev, refuses to return to Baku. The latter has been recalled from the position of an Ambassador of Azerbaijan to Spain since May 20 this year by the decree of the president of Azerbaijan, but it turns out that he absolutely has no intention to leave his position and breaking their president’s decision fulfils the duties of the ambassador until now. When the journalists asked him why he still takes the office, he announced that no one has dismissed him, while the same information that he as of May 20 terminates his duties as an Ambassador of Azerbaijan by the decree of Ilham Aliyev is posed in Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry website.
Before that, the Consul of the Azerbaijani Embassy to the Netherlands, Nahid Jafarov, refused to return to Baku. In early June, the Head of the EU Islamic Cooperation Organization Mission, Arif Mammadov, who was an Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry official refused to return to Baku, he stayed in Brussels asking for a political asylum in Belgium. The reason was his Facebook post about the fire in the 16-storey building in Baku that caused a hysteria in Aliyev’s administration and a big noise in Baku because the diplomat had strongly criticized the Azerbaijani authorities. So, he preferred to seek asylum in Belgium. After it, in early September, the Azerbaijani embassy staff-diplomats to Australia, Farid Subkhanverdiev and Anar Hasanov refused to return to Azerbaijan.
The latter had published shameful facts about the business activities of the Azerbaijani Ambassador to Canberra, Rovshan Jamshidov, who, according to A. Hasanov, “circulates” the funds of the embassy in the industry of tobacco and alcohol sales … Imagine the situation in Azerbaijan when the diplomats are massively fleeing Ilham Aliyev’s regime. What else can be said about this country,” said Gagik Hambaryan.
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Nune AREVSHATYAN
