Azerbaijani Officials gave a Talk about their Country at the Faculty of Law of Buenos Aires

Rashad Aslanov and Leyla Abdullayeva

On Thursday, October 18, the conference "Azerbaijan, 1918-2018, achievements and challenges: building good governance, a diverse and inclusive society and a multivectorial foreign policy" was held in the Faculty of Law of Buenos Aires organized by the Departments of Social Sciences and of Postgraduate of the Faculty, with the coordination of Ricardo Rabinovich-Berkman, of the Department of Social Sciences.

Rashad Aslanov, ambassador of Azerbaijan in Argentina, and Leyla Abdullayeva, spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan, were the speakers of the event in the main auditorium of the faculty, which had little presence composed mainly of embassy staff, students of the postgraduate and members of the Armenian community.

Abdullayeva began by telling the story of Azerbaijan and remarked that when regaining independence and leaving the Soviet Union, his country suffered the "occupation of its territories by Armenia", omitting the reasons that led to the war between Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan and Armenia. Later, she stressed that Azerbaijan "has an ethnic and religious diversity" and that they are concerned about "multiculturalism", not mentioning that the Foreign Ministry itself maintains a blacklist of citizens who are prohibited from entering the country.

On the current situation with Armenia, Abdullayeva assured that his government was looking for a peaceful solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, but avoided referring to the repeated threats of a resumption of the war by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev.

"The conference served to show the lack of interest that Azerbaijan has awakened in the student body, in spite of the numerous disbursements made over the years to encourage university trips to Baku so that they return to Argentina with a commitment to their regime," said Nicolas Sabuncuyan, President of the Armenian National Committee of Argentina. "Although it was painful to see the officials of a denialist State in same room of the university that hosted the Armenian Genocide Centennial Congress, the possibility of asking questions allowed us to show that they have to lie even more to sustain their statements, undermining their credibility more and more."

When the time for questions was opened, the ambassador was asked about the impact that the relationship between Azerbaijan and Nicolas Maduro could have on other countries in South America, in the framework of the future presidency of Azerbaijan in the Movement of Non-Aligned Countries (NAM) between 2019-2022, taking into account the position of the Organization of American States (OAS) on the government of Venezuela. "We have good relations with all countries, we will be hosting the NAM meeting next year and all countries will be welcome to Azerbaijan, including Venezuela," replied Abdullayeva. "I can not say that we have intensive relations with Venezuela," added Abdullayeva, even though Maduro was the first and only Latin American president so far to visit Azerbaijan.

Then, the speakers were shown a report by the United Nations Human Rights Council detailing a series of human rights violations by the Ilham Aliyev regime, to which Abdullayeva replied that Azerbaijan was a young country with only 27 years of democracy and that they were still working to improve. "I do not think any society is perfect."

Finally, the diplomat was asked about the Ramil Safarov case. "He was sentenced in Hungary, he was imprisoned for 12 years and then extradited to Azerbaijan. It was a legal procedure, I do not see the problem. He answered in Hungary for the case he was accused of," said Abdullayeva, without expressing her opinion on the fact that President Ilham Aliyev has promoted  a murderer and treated him as a hero for his crime.