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Ambassador Elin Suleymanov

Azerbaijan's ambassador to Ireland criticises EU Parliament's resolution on Nagorno-Karabakh

Tensions remain high between Azerbaijan and Armenia with Azerbaijan this week hosting joint millitary drills with Turkey near the border of Armenia.

AZERBAIJAN’S AMBASSADOR TO Ireland and the UK has criticised the European Parliament for accusing Azerbaijan of ethnic cleansing and said the tone of the conversation surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh “needs to change”.

Speaking to The Journal, Ambassador Elin Suleymanov, rejected the Parliament’s accusation as an “emotional decision” and said Azerbaijan wants to work with the EU as an equal partner “not somebody who would be mentored, lectured and have fingers pointed at”.

Earlier this month, the European Parliament passed a resolution which said it considered that the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh amounted to ethnic cleansing and strongly condemned the “threats and violence committed by Azerbaijani troops”.

The parliament also called on the EU and member states to immediately offer all necessary assistance to Armenia to deal with the influx of refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh and the subsequent humanitarian crisis.

The resolution was passed by a landslide with 491 votes in favour, 9 against and 36 abstentions.

Azerbaijan rejects this claim of ethnic cleansing, but Ambassador Suleymanov accepted that at least 100,000 people have fled Nagorno-Karabakh into neighbouring Armenia following Azerbaijan’s offensive on the region in September.

The United Nations sent a monitoring mission to the region at the beginning of October to find the area largely deserted but has not itself used the term ethnic cleansing. 

A UN spokesperson said at the time: “Our colleagues were struck by the sudden manner in which the local population fled their homes and the suffering that the experience must have caused them.”

The spokesperson added that the UN did not come across any reports of violence against civilians following the latest ceasefire while the UN has committed to further visits to the region.

However, Armenia said that the monitoring mission had come too late.

Internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan, Nagorno-Karabakh became a breakaway state under the control of ethnic Armenian forces in 1994 following a six-year conflict and has remained a point of tension ever since.

A war in 2020 returned control of much of the area to Azerbaijan. Flash forward to last month, a lightning offensive by Azerbaijani forces resulted in separatists relinquishing the rest of the region.

Last week, Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev raised his nation’s flag over the capital city in a ceremony reaffirming Baku’s control over it.

Speaking to The Journal earlier this month, Armenia’s Ambassador to Ireland Varuzhan Nersesyan warned that the situation with Azerbaijan is at risk of deteriorating further and urged the international community to guarantee the rights of ethnic Armenians to return to the region. 

Prospects of peace agreement

Azerbaijan has consistently claimed that ethnic Armenians who wish to return will have their rights protected if they choose to do so, but Armenia does not believe this will be the case. 

Azerbaijan’s ambassador to Ireland, Elin Suleymanov said he can understand Mr Nersesyan’s “emotional frustration” and said that he believes there definitely needs to be a signed peace agreement between the two countries.

“Our objective is to build a region where we can all live in peace and cooperate with each other towards a more prosperous future for all of us,” he said. 

Suleymanov added that a “fundamentally important question” is why the Armenian ambassador “talks about the Karabakh region of Azerbaijan all of the time?”

“He doesn’t speak about anything else,” he said.

Azerbaijan’s blitz offensive on September 19 has resulted in a huge refugee crisis, when almost all of the 120,0000 ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh fled to Armenia.

Suleymanov pointed out that between 800,000 and 900,000 Azerbaijani’s were expelled from the region in the 1990s.

“We don’t want to do what they did to us.

“Most of those people who escaped Armenian occupation, their houses were destroyed. They were escaping violence, murders, military also. People who left Azerbaijan today for Armenia, they did not do so under direct order and they were not encouraged to leave,” he said.

Suleymanov said what Azerbaijan wants to see now is for both countries to sign a peace agreement.

However, tensions remained heightened between both countries with Azerbaijan this week hosting joint military drills with Turkey near the border of Armenia. 

Suleymanov said that such drills are routine and pointed to Armenia’s purchase of defensive military equipment from France this week and said “Azerbaijan has to be prepared”.

Meanwhile, Armenia’s Ambassador to Ireland warned this month that the situation with Azerbaijan is at risk of further deterioration and said Azerbaijan has “openly expressed territorial claims towards the Republic of Armenia”.

Suleymanov refuted this point and said: “Remember, on many occasions, the President of Azerbaijan said very clearly, and every official in Azerbaijan has repeated: we have no military objectives on Armenian territory.”

“Against all this rumor mill, we don’t have any plans to attack Armenia,” Suleymanov said.

On the same day that Azerbaijan started its drills near the border of Armenia, representatives from both countries, along with Turkey and Russia, met for talks hosted by Iran in a bid to find a solution without the West.

Iran and Russia both denounced European and US interference in the issue, with Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov calling out the EU in particular.

Peace talks hosted by the EU have been proposed for later this month by European Council President Charles Michel, but a date has not yet been set.

Additional reporting from AFP.

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    Mute S K
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    Sep 12th 2015, 10:03 AM

    I don’t have a problem with ads in theory as I understand that’s how we get stuff for free. The problem is when the ads are so intrusive that it makes it next to impossible to enjoy the content, then I’m going to block them. Having thirty second non skippable ads on YouTube after every second video, or ads with crazy flash videos, or articles split over multiple pages to increase advertising space drove me to install ad block.

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    Mute little jim
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    Sep 12th 2015, 10:13 AM

    Then the content is rubbish, and hence the problem.

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    Mute An Observer
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    Sep 12th 2015, 9:55 AM

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    Mute Ciaran
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    Sep 12th 2015, 10:05 AM

    what about likes of greedy rte that we already pay TV licence put have to sit threw full screen pop up ads and about 5 ads before a program even starts!

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    Mute Darach Malone
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    Sep 12th 2015, 10:17 AM

    your TV licence fee doesn’t even begin to cover rte costs. without the ads they would be extinct.

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    Mute Sean J. Troy
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    Sep 12th 2015, 11:16 AM

    The RTE and BBC license fees are very similar. The Beeb has no ads and is arguably the best content creator in the world. Yes, it has a much bigger license base. But it’s network of stations and channels both in the UK and abroad is much bigger than RTE.

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    Mute Ciarán
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    Sep 12th 2015, 1:20 PM

    The beeb also have 16 times the population to collect the licence fee from

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    Mute cooperguy
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    Sep 12th 2015, 2:53 PM

    @Sean, you have to be joking! The BBC license fee is massively more revenue than what RTE get. If you want an ad free rte you would need need a massive license fee increase.

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    Mute Sean Oige
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    Sep 12th 2015, 5:21 PM

    They should get rid of the ads so! RTE an absolute waste of money….

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    Mute cooperguy
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    Sep 12th 2015, 6:11 PM

    why exactly, their viewing numbers says different. Your not supposed to like everything they do. that’s the point of public broadcasting, not everything has to appeal to a mass market

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    Mute Fergus O'Neill
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    Sep 12th 2015, 10:18 AM

    I’ve had just over 200,000 ads blocked in just over a year. 200,000 – there’s your reason for installing a blocker.

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    Mute Mark Malone
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    Sep 12th 2015, 12:28 PM

    156,742 for me in around the same length of time. Ludicrous amount.

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    Mute Thomas Mac
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    Sep 12th 2015, 9:59 AM

    I wouldn’t be able to watch my favourite online sports channel only for adblocker plus .

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    Mute Enda O Brien
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    Sep 12th 2015, 9:49 AM

    No problem with subscription models i have a few but you would want to be providing a good service.

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    Mute Ciarán
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    Sep 12th 2015, 10:00 AM

    The take a whitelist approach, an adblocker can be quite useful for security reasons browsing websites you’re in familiar with. However websites I visit frequently will get whitelisted as long as there are no autoplay video ads. More broadly the issue is very similar to that of music, film and game piracy. A generation of people now seem to find the idea of artists and writers being paid for the content they produce completly alien. They also refuse to acknowledge this act as stealing

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    Mute Enda O Brien
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    Sep 12th 2015, 10:02 AM

    Honestly the way the music industry was so explotive of people when the likes of napster did not exist was the reason noone had a problem with using the likes of napster.

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    Mute Ciarán
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    Sep 12th 2015, 11:29 AM

    I’m not old enough to have been exploited by the music industry pre Napster I wasnt even ten when they got sued and there are people only about 5 or years younger than me who have never paid for music in their lives

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    Mute Sean McGovern
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    Sep 12th 2015, 10:07 AM

    I stopped using Vodafone because of the amount of ads they force you to watch on YouTube and other web sites.

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    Mute Andy Cahalan
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    Sep 12th 2015, 11:27 AM

    What did I just read?

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    Mute Sean J. Troy
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    Sep 12th 2015, 11:10 AM

    I don’t mind ads. I do mind bad, poorly targeted ads. I would have thought in 2015 the might of Google would have figured out that making me sit through a few seconds of advertising to watch a ten second cat video is stupid. Especially when they’ve been collecting data on me for years and haven’t figured out that maybe an ad for L’Oréal shampoo is probably the wrong product to target me with. Some of the American services are the worst though. They put ads in services that you actually pay for like NFL and MLB live streaming and then the ads are exclusively targeted at American audiences. Absolutely pointless.

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    Mute Rochelle
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    Sep 12th 2015, 11:29 AM

    I’m entirely fine with web based businesses failing to succeed and the internet going back to being mainly driven by hobbyists. Those motivated by passion and interest rather than monetary gain.

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    Mute Search Eagle
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    Sep 13th 2015, 10:12 AM

    “Passion” doesn’t cover the massive costs required to host the videos you enjoy. An awful lot of hobbyist content relies on tools that are made free by advertising revenue.

    But I am also fine with web-based businesses failing because people won’t click their ads. However, the internet won’t change into the passion and interest haven you seek, instead people with the resources and money will consolidate their control by introducing other paid models. See, for example: blip which deleted the videos and kicked out all its hobbyist content creators to focus on its 4000 stronger more commercially lucrative partners.

    There’s also nothing wrong with seeking monetary gain for doing something you enjoy. Why should the people who produce the content you consume be required to do so for free?

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    Mute Michael Fallon
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    Sep 12th 2015, 9:55 AM

    Is there an adblock for ipads and where can I get it?

    19
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    Mute David Ronan
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    Sep 12th 2015, 10:05 AM

    Use this, great for blocking all ads on all devices connected to your network, small bit of DIY involved but worth it http://lifehacker.com/turn-a-raspberry-pi-into-an-ad-blocker-with-a-single-co-1686093533

    14
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    Mute Life in no motion
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    Sep 12th 2015, 11:21 AM

    Block Party was working for me on ios 9 beta

    Used it on the indo site. I’ve a 6+ and the poxy ad for Ribena takes up almost all the page

    Ridonculous

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    Mute Michael Sands
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    Sep 12th 2015, 12:22 PM

    I’m sick of adverts everywhere… Next toilet paper unless you use newspapers?

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    Mute Paul Murphy
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    Sep 12th 2015, 3:11 PM

    Ads are great as long as they stay in one place, don’t make any noise (unless I click on them), don’t slow down the website and don’t try to install stuff on my computer/phone/whatever.

    Otherwise yer blocked.

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    Mute Andrew McCarthy
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    Sep 12th 2015, 2:08 PM

    Worse than the distraction and delays, there’s the growing problem of malvertising — ads that are actually malicious content that can infect your browser/PC/phone without any interaction from you. Blocking flash helps a bit, but really I’ve found blocking all ads best.

    Take a look at https://blog.malwarebytes.org/malvertising-2/ for some of the most recent ones including major sites like Yahoo and MSN. Worth the risk?

    8
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    Mute Gusty McBlow
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    Sep 12th 2015, 12:50 PM

    Hosts File!

    That is all.

    6
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    Mute Jim Nielsen
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    Sep 12th 2015, 4:35 PM

    entirely agree – in my case it stops 99% of adverts and it’s a small matter to add new hosts entries when needed. the only drawback with the hosts file approach is when add sites are using https://…/ as i have seen happening with mrgreen betting and a couple more..

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    Mute Pete Gibson
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    Sep 12th 2015, 3:39 PM

    It’s called “click-bait”.
    Just below this very article were:
    12 frightening facts your pilot will never tell you.
    23 facts about left-handed people.
    and surprise surprise…
    50 of the funniest cats.

    6
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    Mute Kane Abel
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    Sep 12th 2015, 9:58 AM

    Dumb logo – Really looks like AdRoil….(?) I predict failure….

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    Mute ScewMadd
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    Sep 13th 2015, 2:00 PM

    This ad reminds me of this cringey video.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67ZZUSpeS4k

    1
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