NBA: "VTB does not and will never have any business interests in Karabakh"

In particular, Day.Az was presented a letter of senior vice president of VTB Nikolai Kuznetsov, addressed to then-deputy chairman of the National Bank of Azerbaijan Rufat Aslanly, which sheds a light to the actions of the National Bank.

The letter reads that on February 1 of 2008 the VTB bank submitted a set of documents to get permission of the National Bank of Azerbaijan for completion of a deal. According to it, all demands of the legislation of Azerbaijan, set to the documents, were executed.

On June 16 of 2008 Bank VTB (Armenia) decided to suspend the activity of the Khankendi affiliate in Nagorno Karabakh and on September 11 of 2008 the affiliate stopped its activity.

"In connection with the earlier attained agreements we request you to issue a license of the National Bank of Azerbaijan for purchase of 51% stocks of AF-Bank in the near future".

In the same letter, Kuznetsov submitted copies of extracts from protocol of Bank VTB (Armenia) which says that it was decided that it is expedient to stop the activity of the affiliate in Khankendi.

On the same day, chief of department of National Bank of Azerbaijan for control over credit organizations Rashad Orujev commented on the established situation to Day.Az.

According to him, "VTB is one of the biggest banks of Russia and the region. It has a definite weight in the international banking system and it is not correct to approach this issue like that: "If they cooperate with Armenia, they should not be allowed to the financial market of Azerbaijan".

"In 2004 VTB bought the Savings Bank of Armenia, which had an affiliate in Nagorno Karabakh. The VTB affiliate in Khankendi was not opened after the Savings Bank of Armenia was bought.

Of course, when VTB appealed to the National Bank about the purchase of control shares in Azerbaijani AFBank, VTB was demanded to close affiliate in Khankendi and stop all business contacts with Nagorno Karabakh separatists.

After all these demands were executed, it was decided to allow to VTB to purchase AFBank's shares.

I would like to repeat that VTB has no and will never have any interests in Nagorno Karabakh. I would like to especially note that the National Bank would never allow the purchase of a control share of AFBank by VTB, ignoring the interests of Azerbaijan. I assure you that there will never be any business projects of VTB in Nagorno karabakh", said Orujev.

According to deputy chairman of the board of the National Bank of Azerbaijan Avtandil Babayev, the Bank is especially sensitive about such issues and takes exact steps, primarily responding to the interests of our country.

There often appear information about transfers of monetary funds to nagorno Karabakh, he said and added that they sent letters to the systems of monetary transfers, which engage in it in Karabakh and when necessary, ban their activity in Azerbaijan.

/Day.Az/