Armenian participants of School of Journalistic Excellence in Sochi refute the lies of Azerbaijani journalist
Yesterday the Azerbaijani news agency "Vesti.az" published an article written by journalist Vugar Hasanov about the School of journalistic excellence held in Sochi, which is organized by the "North-South" Center of Political Studies. In his article, the journalist notes that on the way to Olympic units "the Armenian side has expressed its interest in participation of Azerbaijani side in deliberations concerning the Karabakh conflict issues, especially as the way was long."
"When asked what the Azerbaijani side thinks of Karabakh issue, I asked them to answer to their own question: "You do not want to fight, you don’t want to return the lands either. Tell me honestly, what would you do if you were instead of Azerbaijan? That’s how it started. Reproaches, accusations, the case of Ramil Safarov, the events in Sumgait ... In general, the Armenian side remembered every negative detail. The Azerbaijani side, knowing beforehand that it’s useless to prove any Armenian that he is a representative of an occupant country, still brought facts about Gukark, about the brutal expulsion of the Azerbaijanis from Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh, about the genocide in Khojalu, the "writer" Zori Balayan, etc." Hasanov writes.
Commenting on these statements, the member of the Armenian delegation, correspondent of “Panorama.am” Lia Khojoyan noted that everything Hasanov said was a lie.
"Just on the contrary, Vugar was trying to be very nice in communicate with the representatives of Armenian delegation and was avoiding policy issues. He pronounced the word Karabakh only once, when while sitting at our table, he noted that there are rumors in Azerbaijan that next year Azerbaijan will be nicely asked to join the Customs Union. And they say, the Nagorno-Karabakh issue will then be discussed in a completely different course," said the journalist.
According to her, there were no discussions on “who owns Karabakh” topic.
Hasanov also noted in his article that "while visiting the Olympic units, some people from the Armenian delegation, looked at the large monitor mounted on the ceiling of the arena, and seeing their images there for some unknown reasons shouted "Hayastan, Karabakh!" Thanks a lot to the organizers, who stepped in and noted that politics is inappropriate on such journalistic event."
In this regard Lia Khojoyan clarified that those shouting "Karabakh" were not the members of Armenian media delegation. And all the more, there were no comments made by the organizers.
In its turn, the editor-in-chief of PanARMENIAN.Net agency Marina Ananikyan, who had also attended the event, noted that "one should only advise their Azerbaijani colleague to grow up."
"The skill of the Azerbaijani journalists of becoming a quite appropriate people outside their country, and transforming to resentful children on their return to their native Azerbaijan, and blaming everyone in their troubles but themselves, continues to amaze. Azerbaijani journalist Vugar Hasanov too demonstrated a similar metamorphosis," the editor noted.
"As a member of the Sochi event, I can state with confidence: there were no problems in communication between Armenian and Azerbaijani journalists. Armenian delegation, following the unwritten rule of such events did not yield to no-no yes and small creepy Azerbaijani provocations," added Ananikyan.