Armenia pushes foreign citizens to visiting Azerbaijan’s occupied territories by fraud and other ways, and later tries to turn these people into a tool in its propagandist political games, Hikmat Hajiyev, spokesman for Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry, told AzVision.az on Feb. 3.

He was commenting on the extradition of blogger Alexander Lapshin.

Hajiyev recalled that Azerbaijan has opened a criminal case and issued an international arrest warrant for Lapshin, whose acts have been considered quite criminal.

He noted that Lapshin, in spite of special warning of the foreign ministries of the countries of which he is a citizen, he violated the state border of Azerbaijan and paid illegal visits to the occupied territories.

“Knowing that his name had been added to the list of undesired persons of the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry, he entered Azerbaijan once again with his passport of another country,” the spokesman said. “He admitted to having done so deliberately and tendentiously.”

“Therefore, attempts to politicize this issue and present it under the guise of "a violation of freedom of speech" are quite wrong. Unfounded resonance and discussion on the purely legal issue is not understandable,” Hajiyev added.

Hajiyev pointed out that Azerbaijan has already taken appropriate legal steps for extradition of Lapshin, who was detained in Belarus in accordance with the Chisinau Convention of 2002 on the legal assistance and legal relations on civil, family and criminal cases.

“In fact, the unfounded and ridiculous intention and attempts of Armenia to politicize the issue expose the dirty goals pursued by Armenia,” Hajiyev said, adding. “Armenia pushes foreign citizens to visiting Azerbaijan’s occupied territories by fraud and other ways, and later tries to turn these people into a tool in its propagandist political games.”

Lapshin paid illegal visits to the occupied Azerbaijani territories in April 2011 and in October 2012, violating Azerbaijan’s laws on the state border and passports. He made statements against Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity.

The Prosecutor General’s Office has opened a criminal case against him on articles 281.2 (public appeals directed against the state) and 318.2 (illegal crossing border of the Azerbaijan Republic), and issued an international arrest warrant for him.

Lapshin is a citizen of both Russia and Israel.

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 Dec.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.

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