Azerbaijan cancels its participation in tourism exhibition in Berlin ahead of time

Azerbaijan has terminated its participation in the International Tourism Fair in Berlin early, a press release of the Embassy of Azerbaijan in Germany issued yesterday reads, the head of the European bureau of Vestnik Kavkaza Orhan Sattorov reports.

The text of the statement noted that the Armenian side is abusing the peaceful tourist exhibition for the purpose of propaganda in favor of a policy contrary to international law. Thus, the Armenia and Caucasus Tourism Development Company, participating in the exhibition, has distributed materials promoting the so-called Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. The Embassy of the Republic of Azerbaijan reiterates that the secessionist entity is recognized neither by the UN, nor by the German government.

A similar action was undertaken by the Armenian side once before in 2009, after which the ITB administration made efforts to prevent such provocations in the future, thus ensuring the successful participation of Azerbaijan in the Tourism Exchange for many years, until this year. The press release stressed that the activities of the ‘Karabakh’ stand at the exhibition contradicts not only international law, but also the commercial terms for the fair and exhibitions of the company Messe Berlin GmbH (paragraph 12.2), as well as the conditions of participation in the International Tourism Fair (paragraph 12).

In addition, as reported by the Azerbaijani diplomatic service, despite the recognition of the administration of ITB of their obligations to eliminate such propaganda posters and informational materials, unfortunately effective actions to prevent provocations have not been reported, and in such circumstances Azerbaijan is no longer able to continue its participation in the Tourism Exchange, where its territorial integrity and sovereignty is rudely ignored, and has dropped out of the event. The embassy also noted with regret that this incident took place in Germany, which announced the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict as a priority within the framework of its presidency of the OSCE.