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Ahead of the parliamentary elections in Azerbaijan, the “Gulen” movement founder Fethullah Gulen’s network and Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) became a headache for the Azerbaijani authorities, as stated in an article, published on the website of the newspaper Azadlig.

As the parliamentary elections near, controversies over the list of the candidates for MP grow inside the authority circles. The Pashayev clan and groups from Nakhijevan still have disputes over the new candidate list, the author of the article notes.

The Azerbaijani authorities also face another dilemma regarding the MPs who have ties with the network of the Islamic preacher Fethullah Gulen. The authorities cannot make a concrete decision: whether to allow them to the Parliament or not, the article reads.

“Turkey demands that Azerbaijan neutralizes the Gulen network. Ankara is convinced that the reason the Justice and Development Party (JDP), the ruling party in Turkey, suffered a crushing defeat in the latest parliamentary elections in Azerbaijan, is that the Turkish citizens living in Azerbaijan did not vote in favor of JDP because of the Gulen network’s influence in that country,” Azadlig points.

On the other hand, the newspaper has information that the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan several times gave Ilham Aliyev lists of gulenists among the Azerbaijani authorities. Turkey persistently demands that the Azerbaijani authorities neutralize the members of the Gulen network, as well as the supporters of the PKK.

“Meanwhile, the authorities do not want to spoil relations with Turkey on the one hand, and confront the Gulen network ahead of the parliamentary elections from the other. Sources from inside the authority say that the ruling team has no concrete plan to solve this dilemma,” the newspaper highlights.

The parliamentary elections in Azerbaijan are scheduled to take place on 1 November. Recently, there were local reports about the Azerbaijani authorities simulating an increase of the number of “independent” candidates for the upcoming parliamentary elections. The international agencies reportedly adopted a rather sharp position regarding these elections. The European Parliament even decided not to send observers to the elections in Azerbaijan. Moreover, the European Parliament members’ participation in the elections as independent observers is considered unacceptable.