A few days ago the Azerbaijani Trend Agency has issued an outstanding release. By quoting the words of the Foreign Affairs Minister of Azerbaijan, Elmar Mamedyarov, the Trend wrote, “The British government asked its citizens not to travel to Azerbaijan’s territory. Karabakh, which is currently occupied by Armenia.”
According to the release such a service is offered by the Sunvil Discovery Tour Agency located in London. The FA of Azerbaijan has even mentioned the 10-day cost of the travel – 1627 pounds (nearly 3350 USD), which includes the airplane fare and other expenses. Mamedyarov informed that the Ambassador of Azerbaijan to the UK had meetings with the government officials of the UK and as a result, this release was prepared. Mamedyarov says that this statement once again emphasizes the recognition of the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan on the part of the west. How truthful this information is? Let’s first mention that there is nothing special about this statement. The UK has a state service, named “Travel Advice Center”, which gives information about countries. This data of the Advice Center was refreshed on December 6 of the current year. It is true that the first point of the advice center advises the British citizens not to travel to Karabakh. However, the formulation is slightly different. It doesn’t say that Karabakh is Azerbaijan’s territory occupied by Armenia. It is formulated this way, “Nagorno Karabakh and the occupied territories nearby.” Nevertheless, it is not a great relief since the UK considers NKR as part of Azerbaijan. Let’s mention that in that same report the Advice Center warns the British citizens of other things as well, such as bird flu in Azerbaijan, terrorist attack, crimes committed against tourists, etc. Of course, Mamedyarov didn’t speak about these things. But what is ridiculous here? Before answering this question it would be better to brief you on the services offered by the Sunvil Discovery. This company really organizes trips to Karabakh. But the trip, which Mamedyarov referred to, is related to Armenia. If more thoroughly explained the tour, which the Sunvil Discovery offers, includes a ten-day sojourn, two days out of which are spent in Karabakh. The rest of the 7 days, the tourists are taken to Sisian, Shakki waterfalls. After that they go to Shushi and Stepanakert. The tourists spend the night in the Nairi Hotel of Stepanakert. On the next day they are introduced to the sights of the city. On the next day they return to Armenia and shortly stop in Shushi. You can receive all the details on the website of Sunvil Discovery. The reason why we enumerated all these details is that the travel agency clearly knows that the tourists cannot go to Karabakh from the territory of Azerbaijan. They should first go to Armenia and then only to Karabakh. It would be ridiculous to think that the British do not understand this. The above-mentioned released is also funny. On the other hand, all that is sad because clearly shows the interference of Azerbaijan in the context. And this speaks about one more failure of our foreign policy or as Vardan Oskanyan would say about the “diplomatic victory.”