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AZERIS PICKET FRENCH EMBASSY OVER "ARMENIAN GENOCIDE" BILL
ANS TV
Jan 25 2012
Azerbaijan
A picket has been staged outside the French embassy in Baku in protest
at the bill by the French Senate that makes it illegal to deny the
1915 mass killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks amounted to genocide,
privately-owned ANS TV reported on 25 January.
The protesters were members of the Karabakh Liberation Organization
and the International Diaspora Centre, the report said.
In their resolution, the protesters demanded that France be
removed from the OSCE Minsk Group which mediates a solution to the
Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over the breakaway Nagornyy Karabakh
region, that all economic and political ties with France be suspended,
that French products be boycotted and that the French Total company
be removed from the major energy contract Azerbaijan signed with
foreign companies in 1994, the TV said.
There was a minor clash between the police and few protesters
who broke through the police cordon and approached the embassy,
the report said. The TV showed protesters carrying Azerbaijani and
Turkish flags and a poster saying in Azerbaijani "Stop aiding Armenia
that has occupied Karabakh".
In the meantime, APA news agency quoted the deputy chief of the Baku
Police Department, Col Sahlab Bagirov, as saying that no protests
would be allowed outside the French embassy from now on. There is
no point for any NGOs or party members to picket the French embassy
after the government has already protested against the French bill,
APA quoted him as saying.
[translated from Azeri]
ANS TV
Jan 25 2012
Azerbaijan
A picket has been staged outside the French embassy in Baku in protest
at the bill by the French Senate that makes it illegal to deny the
1915 mass killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks amounted to genocide,
privately-owned ANS TV reported on 25 January.
The protesters were members of the Karabakh Liberation Organization
and the International Diaspora Centre, the report said.
In their resolution, the protesters demanded that France be
removed from the OSCE Minsk Group which mediates a solution to the
Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over the breakaway Nagornyy Karabakh
region, that all economic and political ties with France be suspended,
that French products be boycotted and that the French Total company
be removed from the major energy contract Azerbaijan signed with
foreign companies in 1994, the TV said.
There was a minor clash between the police and few protesters
who broke through the police cordon and approached the embassy,
the report said. The TV showed protesters carrying Azerbaijani and
Turkish flags and a poster saying in Azerbaijani "Stop aiding Armenia
that has occupied Karabakh".
In the meantime, APA news agency quoted the deputy chief of the Baku
Police Department, Col Sahlab Bagirov, as saying that no protests
would be allowed outside the French embassy from now on. There is
no point for any NGOs or party members to picket the French embassy
after the government has already protested against the French bill,
APA quoted him as saying.
[translated from Azeri]