Is Gerard Depardieu spying for the French Ministry of Culture?

Armenia is impetuously turning into a closed country, reviving a Soviet spirit of distrust to everything foreign.

Recent detention of a Baltic film crew in Yerevan’s international airport spurted a wave of hysterically inclined publications by a number of Armenian media.

According to BBC, "on March 10 journalists from Lithuania, Estonia and Finland arrived to the capital of Armenia to arrange a series of shootings for the TV show to be broadcasted on the Finnish national TV channel Yle and later be used in a documentary on Caucasus armed conflicts". As BBC journalist has been told by Armenian officials, "they could not get entry visas due to technical reasons".

"A system that admits [foreigners in Armenia] is commonly utilized by all member countries of CSTO. Guys could somehow "get spotted" in Belarus or Kyrgyzstan, consequently facing a problem when entering Armenia," Samvel Martirosyan, Armenian expert on information security, told bbcrussian.com.

But even Martirosyan’s version pales before lunatic interpretation of above mentioned developments that had surprisingly been put forward by REGNUM agency with the references to sources in Armenia's secret services.

Cooked up in a great hustle, this story is aiming to drown voices of such a reputable international media as BBC, "Svoboda", and INTERFAX that covered an incident just a few hours after its occurrence.

According to REGNUM, Armenian authorities accused the crew, notably its producer Mr. Andrius Brokas in performing espionage in favor of Azerbaijan. As an eloquent testimony to this fact Armenian side referred to former cooperation of Mr. Brokas with the Ministry of Culture of Azerbaijan.

Our own investigation of this issue ended up with interesting results. Replying at our request, representative of the Ministry of Culture of Azerbaijan stated that a year before, Mr. Brokas indeed, as an independent producer, organized guest performance of "Notre Dame de Paris" musical in Baku. But after that Ministry of Culture had no contact with Mr. Brokas neither with other persons detained in Yerevan.

We have also been told that the Ministry of Culture of Azerbaijan is not currently involved in any film project related to Karabakh conflict and peacemaking, including Finnish or any other foreign companies’ projects.

Commenting on the obsessional thoughts on Brokas’ special relations with the Azerbaijan, spokesman of the Ministry said that producers, directors, actors and generally people of art work in many countries despite borders. For example, Gerard Depardieu, a famous French actor, who has previously been to Armenia, had visited Baku recently. And what does that prove? That Depardieu works for the Ministry of Culture of Armenia, and he should be barred from Baku? What about dozens of other artists, journalists and filmmakers who visit South Caucasus doing their jobs? According to the Armenian logic, they all should be treated like spies, representative of the Ministry of Culture asserted.

This unusual case of deportation of a European film crew had a wide coverage in international press with the particular focus on questioning claims of Armenian officials. Foreign journalists noted that the existence of a contract with the Ministry of Culture of Azerbaijan proves nothing but only tour organization, whereas the real cause behind this story is a wish of the crew for interviewing the ex-president of Armenia Mr. Levon Ter-Petrosyan (Eurasianet). The same publication notes that the Armenian authorities have ignored attempts of Lithuanian Ambassador to Armenia to resolve the problem.

Kavkaz-Uzel, BBC and others are inclined to the fact that Armenian authorities are afraid of open debate on the massacre of Azerbaijanis in Khojali and are careful not to provide the platform to ex-president Levon Ter-Petrosyan.

As for now, we failed to communicate with both A. Brokas and members of the crew. The fate of the latter raises a big concern, since from the reports of the Armenian press it is not clear whether they are deported back to Finland, or still detained by authorities to be officially accused in the Finnish-Estonian-Lithuanian anti-Armenian conspiracy. For now one thing is clear: Armenia is continuing to isolate itself from civilized world, reviving the Soviet spirit of distrust to everything foreign.


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