Epress.am News from Armenia
No journalist from Russian radio station Ekho Moskvy (“Echo of Moscow”) will go to Azerbaijan until first deputy editor Sergei Buntman can, said Ekho Moskvy editor-in-chief Alexei Venediktov on air.
After Buntman’s visit to Nagorno-Karabakh, where he interviewed leaders of the unrecognized republic, Azerbaijan’s foreign affairs ministry included him in a list of those individuals whose visit to Azerbaijan is “extremely undesirable.”
Commenting on reports by the Azeri press that Buntman is a quarter Armenian, Venediktov said, “Ekho [Moskvy] staff can have be of any ethnicity. The main thing is he does his job professionally. Sergei did his work brilliantly; he is one of our best interviewers. You can’t find any bias in the interviews he conducted published on our site.
“Azerbaijan has prohibited Buntman to enter any part of Azerbaijan except Nagorno-Karabakh because they can’t do it. This is called shooting yourself in the foot. We have to know what’s happening there [in Karabakh]; it’s our job, though I understand the position of Azerbaijan’s foreign affairs ministry. Though, let me reveal the secret: after the interview in Stepanakert, Sergei was to have gone to Baku and from there to the refugee camps in Azerbaijan to visit the refugees who are forced to live there, who fled Nagorno-Karabakh after the war. In Baku, he was to conduct an interview on Karabakh with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev or the Minister of Foreign Affairs.
“Let me also note that we have visa-free travel with Azerbaijan, and Russian citizens don’t need a special permit for entry into the country.”
Asked why the journalists didn’t first go to Baku, Venediktov said that the radio station is often accused of having a pro-Azerbaijani position.
“People say Ilham Aliyev, Heydar Aliyev and the Guzman brothers don’t get off of our radio station [i.e. we constantly report on them]. Now we are accused of being pro-Armenian. Till now, we’ve had three interviews with the president of Azerbaijan and none with [Armenian President] Serzh Sargsyan. I personally arranged an interview with him, travelled to Yerevan, but the interview fell through. Then Buntman went and did an interview. It doesn’t matter who; it’s important how.”
The Ekho Moskvy editor-in-chief also mentioned that it was the first time Buntman went to Karabakh and there, he visited his grandfather’s village. “I don’t see anything reprehensible in this. I repeat myself, but I have to say again that he did his job admirably.”
Venediktov said he intends to appeal to Russia’s foreign affairs ministry, to attempt to settle the issue. “We have to restore a situation where our journalist is able to go to both countries.”
Venediktov previously noted that Ekho Moskvy staff will go wherever their editor sends them, not where is decided by the foreign ministry of another country.