By Akbar Hasanov, Day.Az
Cicero's dictum that paper will tolerate everything has proved its relevance once again, now after the appearance of an article by Elena Sanchez Nicholas, editor-in-chief of EUobserver.
After reviewing her conclusions, I really regretted that this lady was not among the participants of the Second Global Media Forum in Shusha. After all, it was there that Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev gave answers to many questions.
"This year the UN Climate Conference (COP29) will be held in Azerbaijan, a country heavily dependent on fossil fuels and known for its long-standing human rights violations," EUobserver began its text.
As they say, he immediately explains to the reader what a bad country Azerbaijan is. And she has a lot of oil, and COP29 conducts, and somehow there is something wrong with human rights.
Well, we will have to recall the answers of the head of our state.
"One of the COP conferences was held in Glasgow, in the oil-producing part of the UK. No one has accused the UK of having oil and gas," the Azerbaijani President said, speaking at a media forum in Shusha.
At the same time, he recalled that the president of COP28 - UAE was also subjected to the same attacks, but, unfortunately, it was such a broad, coordinated media process against us.
Yes, he's right, and the lampoon in EUobserver is proof of that. Why the lampoon? Yes, because there was not a word said about the fact that a million Azerbaijanis became refugees and internally displaced persons as a result of the aggressive, occupation policy of Armenia. This country violated the fundamental rights of a million Azerbaijanis, but Elena Sanchez Nicolas did not write anything about it. Well, what should I call what she wrote now?!
"The government of Azerbaijan positions this event as the first-ever campaign "LITTER for Peace", but what this means, especially for relations between warring Azerbaijan and Armenia, remains unclear," this lady continues to talk nonsense, which is clearly haunted by the fact that LITTER will be held in Baku. But this question has already been answered by the head of our state.
"This is the number one conference in the world. It is being held for the first time in the post-Soviet space. This is a unique opportunity for us to enter the top league. We deal not only with organizational issues but also take significant initiatives. We are actively working with developing countries, building bridges between the Global South and the Global North. Our advantage is that we have been chairing the Non-Aligned Movement, an organization of 120 countries, for four years. And we were elected unanimously, our chairmanship was extended for another year unanimously," Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said, speaking in Shusha.
As for clarity in the relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia, then questions should be addressed to official Yerevan. Official Baku, after the full restoration of our territorial integrity in September last year, proposed to sign a peace agreement with Armenia based on the five fundamental principles of international law. Official Yerevan delayed responding for three months.
And then, already in England, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan banally ran away from the continuation of the bilateral negotiation process, in fact disrupting it. But EUobserver doesn't say anything about this. But, there is a statement by Paul Polman, former vice-chairman of the UN Global Compact and CEO of Unilever, who also confirmed the correctness of Cicero's aphorism.
"Armenia cannot negotiate peace with a gun to its head," he said. It is even somehow inconvenient to remind that for almost three decades Armenia has kept 20% of the territory of Azerbaijan under occupation, ignoring four resolutions of the UN Security Council and the UN General Assembly. It was Armenia that held a gun to our temple. Moreover, she also shot.
Including during the 44-day war, when, on the orders of Nikol Pashinyan, rocket attacks were launched on peaceful Azerbaijani cities, as a result of which Azerbaijani old men, women and children were killed and injured. The first Karabakh War, like the 44-day war, was fought on our land, not on the territory of Armenia. But even about all this, not a word was written in EUobserver by those who adhere to the belief that paper will tolerate any lies and nonsense.