Azerbaijani ambassador in Italy against Italian MPs, The Guardian, Khadija Ismayilova and Amnesty

Sept. 5, 2015 - PRLog -- In a long interview with AgoraVox Italia published yesterday, the Azeri ambassador in Rome Vaquis Sadiqov (who in Azerbaijan has been chief of the department of military affairs in the 90s and, for six years, vice foreign affairs minister of Ilham Aliyev) commented the parliamentary question that 17 MPs from the Italian Democratic Party forwarded to their own party's Minister of Foreign Affair, Paolo Gentiloni, to ask the Italian government to evaluate the violation of human rights in Azerbaijan and to take a stand on the jailing of political opponents and journalists. In particular, the inquiry concerns the case of the investigative journalist Khadija Ismayilova. Arrested in December and sentenced this week to 7 years and 6 months of prison, her trial - said (http://eeas.europa.eu/statements-eeas/2015/150901_04_en.htm) the High Representative for EU's Foreign Policicy Federica Mogherini (predecessor of Gentiloni in the Italian Foreign Ministry) - "raised fundamental questions about the impartiality of the court and the legality of the accusation, as witnessed by the international monitors who were present during the trial".

In the interview, the ambassador has declared Italian MPs and human right organization's call for the immediate release of Ismayilova and the other political prisoners inadmissible. "It's absurd in a normal society. It has to be a Court to decide", he said.

Sadiqov accused the Democratic MPs of representing the Armenian interests, observing that several MPs who signed the question are members of the Parliamentary Association Friends of Armenia and that its first signatory Sandra Zampa is also its president. AgoraVox verified that two of seventeen MPs who signed the question are actually members of the association, while Sandra Zampa has ceased to be its president more than two years ago.

The ambassador also explicitly admitted with AgoraVox that the barring of the Amnesty International's operators who were going to Baku last June to present their report in occasion of the European Games was due to political reasons. "They wanted to come to Baku for the opening of the European Games to present a report against Azerbaijan. The Azeri government has no pleasure of letting these people entering the country", he added.

Sadiquov also recognized that the denial of the journalistic VISA to The Guardian's appointed correspondent for the European Games Owen Gibson was due to his "dirty articles" about Azerbaijan that Gibson wrote in the past and to the fact that the journalist was "criticizing Azerbaijan for political reasons. This is why we didn't want him in Baku. I'm hot hiding it".

Sadiquov called the VISA denial "not an important thing". "Our embassy in London was reading his article - Sadiquov explained about Gibson's case - trying to explain him what was false. He refused the information we were giving him".

"We cannot control what everybody entering the country writes, they can write what they want", he said.

The interview is available in Italian here: http://www.agoravox.it/L-ambasciatore-azero-Abbiamo.html

​The spokeswoman of the Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni told AgoraVox will answer the MPs' question, although it's impossible to know the when. ​Matteo Renzi's first undersecretary Claudio De Vincenti, who (also in his previous role of vice ministry of economic development) met several times with Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev and his diplomatic representatives either in Italy and in Baku, refused to answer any request of commenting his party MPs' initiative and to disclose whether or not the issues they raised (as well as the position of Khadija Ismayilova) has been among the topics of discussion with Ilham Aliyev during their meeting in Baku on June 13, in occasion of the European Games opening.

Likewise, no detail has been disclosed by the Matteo Renzi's office about the meeting of Aliyev and the Italian PM in Rome on July 9, for which no access was granted to journalists nor press conference announced.