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Azerbaijan to blacklist foreign musicians for illegally visiting Karabakh

28 April 2017 12:30 (UTC +04:00)

Azerbaijan will investigate the illegal visit of Italian and Slovenian musicians to its occupied territories, said Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry spokesman Hikmat Hajiyev.

Recently, Italian pianist, conductor Luca Ferrini, violinist JoÅ¾e Kotar and clarinetist ÄŒrtomir ŠiškoviÄ from Slovenia illegally visited the occupied Azerbaijani town of Shusha at the invitation of the separatist regime of Nagorno-Karabakh and gave a concert at an art museum there. The concert took place within the framework of the project “Arts for Peace”.

“The illegal visit of musicians from Italy and Slovenia to the occupied territories of Azerbaijan will be investigated by Azerbaijan’s embassies in these countries, and requests will be sent to the relevant bodies of these countries,” said Hajiyev commenting on the matter.

Hajiyev noted that the musicians’ names will be included in the list of ‘undesirable people’ of Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry after all the issues are clarified.

“We strongly condemn the actions of these foreign musicians who became a tool of Armenian propaganda machine for the sake of certain financial interests and help Armenians cover up their vandalism policy against the material and cultural heritage of the Azerbaijani people in the occupied territories,” added the spokesman.

Hajiyev stressed that illegal visits to the occupied Azerbaijani territories mean a violation of the territorial integrity, sovereignty and laws of Azerbaijan, and such illegal activities bear legal responsibility.

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict entered its modern phase when the Armenian SRR made territorial claims against the Azerbaijani SSR in 1988.

A fierce war broke out between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan. As a result of the war, Armenian armed forces occupied some 20 percent of Azerbaijani territory which includes Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent districts (Lachin, Kalbajar, Aghdam, Fuzuli, Jabrayil, Gubadli and Zangilan), and over a million Azerbaijanis became refugees and internally displaced people.

The military operations finally came to an end when Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a ceasefire agreement in Bishkek in 1994.

Dealing with the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is the OSCE Minsk Group, which was created after the meeting of the CSCE (OSCE after the Budapest summit held in December 1994) Ministerial Council in Helsinki on 24 March 1992. The Group’s members include Azerbaijan, Armenia, Russia, the United States, France, Italy, Germany, Turkey, Belarus, Finland and Sweden.

Besides, the OSCE Minsk Group has a co-chairmanship institution, comprised of Russian, the US and French co-chairs, which began operating in 1996.

Resolutions 822, 853, 874 and 884 of the UN Security Council, which were passed in short intervals in 1993, and other resolutions adopted by the UN General Assembly, PACE, OSCE, OIC, and other organizations require Armenia to unconditionally withdraw its troops from Nagorno-Karabakh.