Epress.am News from Armenia
Photos of Aynishan Guliyeva (pictured, second from left, second row), Azerbaijan’s contestant in the 20th International Performers Contest at the Slavianski Bazaar alongside Armenia’s contestant Narek Makaryan (pictured, in purple tie) resulted in a wave of discontent by internet users.
According to Aze.az, Guliyeva was forced to remove Makaryan from her list of Facebook friends. Guliyeva’s mother, Aybaniz Gashimova, who accompanied her daughter to the song contest in Vitebsk, tried to justify and explain how it came to be that her daughter was in a photo with an Armenian.
“This Armenian boy expressed his love for Azerbaijan; the organizers were constantly putting him next to Aynishan. We are a peace-loving people; we couldn’t drive him away from us — the participants and guests of the festival saw everything. That Aynishan was photographed with an Armenian doesn’t mean we have forgotten our martyrs. No! Our family has experienced great sorrow, but we have shown peacefulness. We could not push him away or be rude and thus disgrace our country,” said Gashimova, reports Aze.az.