Two astronauts blacklisted in Baku

The Foreign Ministry of Azerbaijan has blacklisted astronauts Charles M. Duke (USA) and Claude Nicollier (Switzerland) for visiting Nagorno-Karabakh without Baku’s approval, Interfax reports.

Press secretary of the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry Elman Abdullayev said that any person visiting the occupied territories becomes a persona non grata in Azerbaijan.

The astronauts attended the Man and Space Conference in Nagorno-Karabakh on September 16. Charles M. Duke was part of the Apollo 16 expedition and the fifth landing on the Moon. He was the youngest man to visit the Moon. Claude Nicollier is the first Swiss spacemen and made 4 flights.