Day: July 1, 2024

Azerbaijan is denying Western journalists access ahead of the United Nations Climate Summit, known as the Cop29, scheduled for later this year in Baku, The Guardian newspaper reported on Sunday.

The Guardian report said that Western journalists were denied entry to an energy conference in Baku earlier last month.

At least three journalists from Britain and France said they felt “unsafe” after they were denied entry to the Baku Energy Week forum, despite having registered with the event’s organizers weeks in advance.

The journalists said they were not told a valid reason why they were denied entry, but decided to leave the venue after “frightening” and “intimidating” meetings with the organizers.

The conference took place shortly before Human Rights Watch revealed at least 25 cases of journalists and activists arrested or sentenced in Azerbaijan over the past year. Almost all of them remain in detention.

In December, Yerevan agreed that it would not oppose Baku’s bid to host the Cop29 in return for the repatriation of Armenian prisoners of war being held by Azerbaijan. Soon after the agreement, 31 Armenian captives were returned, with many more, including former and current Artsakh officials, being held illegally by Azerbaijan.

Lawrence Walker and Christopher Eales, senior investigative journalists for the energy news agency Montel News, told The Guardian they were denied access to the Baku Energy Week conference despite confirming their registration with the event organizers in mid-May.

Another British journalist, who has written in the past criticizing the Azerbaijani government and asked The Guardian not to be named, was also denied access to the event, despite having received accreditation weeks before the event.

The journalists left the venue after hearing the organizer on the phone say “take them away” in Russian.

The spokesman added that journalists were also later prevented from visiting the exhibition after conference organizers told officials at the venue to “keep an eye on these journalists and make sure they don’t infiltrate the exhibition.”

Baku Energy Week was opened by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, followed by a two-day forum sponsored by BP, France’s TotalEnergies and German energy company Uniper, attended by executives from Socar, Azerbaijan’s state-owned oil and gas company, as well as Western energy companies.

Richard Sverrisson, editor-in-chief of Montel News told The Guardian that he was “deeply concerned” about press freedom and that journalists would be “intimidated and obstructed out of their jobs for simply doing their jobs” at the upcoming Cop29 talks.

“I’m glad they got home safe and sound. I just hope other journalists won’t be treated like this again for just trying to report on an international conference they had accreditation for,” he added.

“A free press and civil society are crucial in the fight against climate destruction. Azerbaijan is trying to silence both, most clearly demonstrated by the beating and imprisonment of Gubad Ibadoglu, a prominent critic of Azerbaijan’s fossil fuel industry. Authoritarian oil states cannot be in charge of climate negotiations,” May Rosner, senior activist at climate advocacy group Global Witness, told The Guardian.

The post Azerbaijan Denying Western Journalists Access Ahead of Climate Summit, The Guardian Reports appeared first on Asbarez.com.

YEREVAN (Azatutyun.am)—Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on Monday voiced misgivings about the idea of a referendum on Armenia’s membership of the European Union advocated by his political allies.

He said the Armenian government should clarify whether the EU is ready to admit the South Caucasus country before holding such a vote.

Pashinyan’s political team brought the issue back to the political agenda late last month amid a continuing deterioration of Russian-Armenian relations. It held a parliamentary hearing in Yerevan featuring leaders of pro-Western fringe groups loyal to the prime minister. The latter urged the government to hold the referendum within the next three months.

Parliament speaker Alen Simonyan, a key Pashinyan ally, predicted on June 26 that the vote will take place “sometime in the near future.”

“If we hold a referendum today, we need to campaign,” Pashinyan told a conference in Yerevan. “When we campaign, people will ask us whether the EU wants that or not. They will tell me: ‘You declared that Armenia is ready to be as close to the EU as the EU is ready. Now how ready is the EU?’ Can I answer that question today? No, I can’t.”

Pashinyan also said that the outcome of recent elections held in the EU and some of its member states is raising more questions about the wisdom of applying for membership in the 27-nation bloc. He seemed to allude to the strong showing of far-right Euroskeptic parties in those polls.

In a nonbinding resolution adopted in March the European Parliament seemed to encourage Yerevan to make a membership bid. However, no EU government has voiced support for such a prospect.

Armenian opposition figures maintain that Armenia has a near-zero chance of being ever admitted to the EU. They claim that Pashinyan wants to use the issue to trick Armenians into endorsing his appeasement policy towards Azerbaijan.


Pashinyan’s administration is also facing warnings from Russia, Armenia’s main trading partner and supplier of natural gas. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Overchuk said last week that Armenia will lose tariff-free access to the Russian market and other economic privileges granted by Moscow if its government does seek EU membership.

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