According to German newspapers, the Azerbaijani government has banned German Bundestag member Albert Weiler from entering Azerbaijan since he visited Artsakh. He is a member of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s political party, the Christian Democratic Union.
Weiler visited Armenia and Artsakh in 2014 and 2016. He is considered to be a “persona non grata” in Azerbaijan and the decision to ban him from entering the country was made at the highest level. Therefore, the meeting between German ambassador to Azerbaijan and the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs to resolve this issue was futile.
As the deputy chairman of the Parliamentary Friendship Group for Relations with the States of the Southern Caucasus, he was supposed to join Angela Merkel for her visit to the Caucasus region.
Weiler spoke about his worries for the situation in the region, saying, “Azerbaijan presented itself to me as a democracy. Doing something like that to a member of parliament does not show signs of democracy at all.”