TODAY.AZ / Politics

MFA: Armenian footballer refused to play in Baku despite Azerbaijan’s security guarantees

27 November 2019 [15:24] - TODAY.AZ

By Azernews

By Abdul Kerimkhanov

Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry Spokesperson has said that FC Arsenal’s player of Armenian origin Henrikh Mkhitaryan refused to come to Baku in May upon his own decision and despite security guarantees given by the government.

“Henrikh Mkhitaryan did not come to Azerbaijan to participate in the final match of the Europa League upon his own decision, while Azerbaijan gave all the relevant guarantees,” Abdullayeva said.

The spokesperson was commenting on Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s recent interview in Italian Corriere della Sera newspaper, describing his statements voiced in the interview as populist.  

“Pashinyan states that Henrikh Mkhitaryan could not participate in the final match of the UEFA Europa League in Baku, allegedly because he was an Armenian… Azerbaijan had disseminated official information about the full security of all players, including Mkhitaryan,” Abdullayeva said.

Abdullayeva recalled that athletes of Armenian origin have repeatedly participated in numerous sports competitions held so far in Azerbaijan.

“During the European Games, the Azerbaijani president personally presented the award to an athlete of Armenian origin,” she stressed.

"Trying to somehow justify his unfounded allegations, Pashinyan shared another thought, citing a false "example" that a driver who was listening to Armenian music in Baku was allegedly arrested," Abdullayeva stated.

Commenting on the thoughts expressed by Pashinyan regarding the settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Abdullayeva pointed out that the Azerbaijani president directly and unequivocally voiced his views on the conflict settlement at the meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club, held in October in Sochi where he said that “Nagorno-Karabakh is Azerbaijan and exclamation mark”.

Furthermore, she reiterated Azerbaijan’s position that the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict must be resolved “within Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity, on the basis of the UN Charter adopted by the whole world, resolutions of the UN Security Council and the Helsinki Final Act.”

For over two decades, Azerbaijan and Armenia have been locked in a conflict, which emerged over Armenia's territorial claims against its South Caucasus neighbor in the 1980s. Since a war in the early 1990s, Armenian armed forces occupied around 20 percent of Azerbaijan's territories, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions. The occupation has displaced around one million Azerbaijanis.

URL: http://www.today.az/news/politics/188644.html

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