TODAY.AZ / Politics

Baku assesses DW program on Nagorno-Karabakh conflict as biased

03 August 2015 [16:42] - TODAY.AZ

/By AzerNews/

By Sara Rajabova

Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry has slammed the program by the German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle “Tensions rise in Nagorno-Karabakh conflict”, which was featured on July 31.

Hikmat Hajiyev, head of the press service of the Azerbaijani foreign ministry said this program is of a biased, one-sided character, which has little to do with objective journalistic principles.

Deutsche Welle? has filmed video in the occupied Azerbaijani region of Nagorno-Karabakh, which is under Armenian occupation for over 20 years. The video features not only occupied Khankendi, but also the Armenian military units, also interview with the separatist regime’s representatives in Nagorno-Karabakh.

Hajiyev told Trend that the illegal visit to the occupied territories of Azerbaijan by the crew of the TV channel Deutsche Welle is a violation of the territorial integrity, sovereignty and laws of Azerbaijan.

Unauthorized visits to Nagorno-Karabakh and other occupied regions of Azerbaijan are considered illegal and individuals who pay such visits are included in the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry's "black list."

Hajiyev went on to say that false opinions of “military and civilian representatives” of the unrecognized regime established on the territories occupied by Armenia as a result of aggression against Azerbaijan were voiced in the program.

He stressed that the program deliberately made no mention of the sufferings and human rights violations of more than one million Azerbaijani refugees and internally displaced persons who have been ethnically cleansed and became the direct victims of the conflict.

The bloody war, which flared up in the late 1980s due to Armenia's territorial claims against its South Caucasus neighbor, left 700,000 civilians of Nagorno-Karabakh and the regions adjoining it, as well as the regions bordering with Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh without homes.

Moreover, 250,000 Azerbaijanis were expelled from Armenia and became refugees due to Armenia's ethnic cleansing policy after the emergence of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict with Azerbaijan.

The Azerbaijanis who had displaced from their homes as result of the brutal war were forced to live in refugee camps, tents and in very difficult conditions.

Hajiyev said the program by “Deutsche Welle” supports a bloody ethnic cleansing against the Azerbaijani people and the creation of an unrecognized criminal regime, and the program itself is disrespectful to the public of Azerbaijan and more than one million refugees and internally displaced persons who have become victims of the conflict.

Distorting the true nature of the conflict and preparing the program, which is far from objectivity, at the same time, DW shows disrespect to the German and the international audience, according to Hajiyev.

He assessed such an approach as a gross violation and abuse of the freedom of expression and the press.

Hajiyev added that the Azerbaijani embassy in Germany intends to submit a formal request to the relevant structures of this country in this regard.

Armenia occupied over 20 percent of Azerbaijan's internationally recognized territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent regions, after laying territorial claims against its South Caucasus neighbor that caused a brutal war in the early 1990s. Long-standing efforts by U.S, Russian and French mediators have been largely fruitless so far.

As a result of the military aggression of Armenia, over 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed, 4,866 are reported missing and almost 100,000 were injured, and 50,000 were disabled.

The UN Security Council has passed four resolutions on Armenian withdrawal from the Azerbaijani territory, but they have not been enforced to this day.

URL: http://www.today.az/news/politics/142611.html

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