Armenia Denies Sponsoring Azeri ‘coup Plot’

[hytga]

http://www.vanadzor.net/blog_commento.asp?...orno=&archivio=

Armenia on Friday flatly denied any role in an alleged conspiracy to overthrow Azerbaijan’s government which claims to have foiled it with the arrest of a young Azerbaijani oppositionist announced the previous night.

 

The National Security Service (NSS) in Yerevan dismissed as “ridiculous” Azerbaijani allegations that it recruited Ruslan Bashirli, the arrested leader of the Yeni Fikir (New Thinking) youth movement, to foment a violent coup d’etat in Baku.

 

A statement issued by Azerbaijan’s Office of Prosecutor-General late Thursday said Bashirli secretly met Armenian security agents in Tbilisi last week and was paid $2,000 to stir up trouble ahead of the Azerbaijani parliamentary elections slated for November. Azerbaijani state television aired footage, allegedly shot in the Georgian capital, of Bashirli accepting cash from three men. The oppositionist was consequently charged with attempting "to take power by force."

 

“We knew that the new head of Azerbaijan’s special services is not a specialist,” the NSS said in a statement, tartly referring to Eldar Mahmudov’s police background. “But hardly anyone would predict that he will cast his subordinates in negative light.”

 

The NSS chief, Gorik Hakobian, compared the case with trumped-up espionage charges leveled by the late Soviet dictator Josef Stalin against his potential rivals. “My advice is this: You can’t solve Azerbaijan’s internal political problems with the long-forgotten methods that were used in the USSR during the 1920s and 1930s,” Hakobian was quoted as saying in the statement.

 

The Armenian security agency avoided any comment on the specifics of the Azerbaijani accusations, though.

 

According to the Azerbaijani authorities, Bashirli and a member of his organization, Osman Alimuradov, were in Tbilisi on July 28-29, meeting with three “Armenian agents” that offered to “render comprehensive assistance for carrying out a revolution in Azerbaijan.” The “agents,” one of them identified as a Georgian, allegedly offered to supply the Azerbaijani opposition with weapons in order to spark violence in Baku.

 

The statement by the Azerbaijani prosecutors also claimed that the cash handed to Bashirli was an advance payment and that the Armenians promised to add $20,000 a few days later. The Yeni Fikir leader was arrested by Azerbaijani security services after they were tipped off by Alimuradov, it said.

 

The statement also implicated the National Democratic Institute (NDI), a U.S. non-governmental organization promoting political reform across the former Soviet Union, in the alleged plot. It quoted Bashirli as telling his alleged Armenian recruiters that Yeni Fikir received "specific instructions from representatives of this organization to prepare a revolution in Azerbaijan."

 

The NDI did not immediately react to the charges denied by Azerbaijani opposition leaders. "This is yet another one of the authorities’ games, this event was organized by the Ministry of National Security," Bashirli’s deputy Fikret Farmazogly told AFP.

 

Yeni Fikir has repeatedly called for the ouster of President Ilham Aliev. The arrest of its leader could further heighten tensions in Azerbaijan in the run-up to the November elections. The United States and European organizations are increasingly pressing Aliev’s regime to ensure their freedom and fairness.

 

The case is also the latest in a long series of Armenian-Azerbaijani spy scandals that result from the unresolved conflict over Nagorno-Artsax. As recently as on June 28, a Yerevan court sentenced a Russian-born citizen of Armenia to twelve years in prison for spying for Azerbaijan and helping its security services plot an attempt on President Robert Kocharian’s life.

 

In Azerbaijan, meanwhile, authorities reportedly purged the Ministry of National Security of employees who have ethnic Armenian parents or other relatives. “We live in Azerbaijan and the presence in the MNS of individuals of Armenian descent or with Armenian relatives is therefore impossible,” the “525ci Gazet” daily quoted a ministry spokesman as saying on June 15.

 

(RFE/RL photo: Gorik Hakobian.)

 

http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2005/...276ce7c044.html

Azerbaijan: Baku Implicates Armenian Intelligence In Alleged Coup Bid

By Liz Fuller

 

(RFE/RL)

Azerbaijan's Prosecutor-General's Office announced on 4 August the arrest of Ruslan Bashirli, leader of the opposition youth movement Yeni Fikir (New Thinking), on charges of plotting to overthrow the Azerbaijani leadership at the instigation of Armenian intelligence operatives. Those allegations, which the Armenian National Security Service and Bashirli's fellow Azerbaijani oppositionists have both rejected, highlight Azerbaijan's ongoing suspicion and hostility toward Armenia and call into question Baku's commitment to creating a "level playing field" for all parties wishing to participate in the 6 November parliamentary election.

 

 

Bashirli was arrested on 3 August and charged with plotting to overthrow the Azerbaijani leadership at the instigation of Armenian intelligence agents with whom he allegedly met in Tbilisi on 28-29 July. Bashirli allegedly accepted $2,000 from one of the Armenians who promised to provide him within days with a further $20,000. A second Yeni Fikir member, Osman Alimuradov, who accompanied Bashirli to Tbilisi, said he rejected pressure to co-opt him and subsequently denounced Bashirli to the Azerbaijani authorities, Turan and day.az reported. Bashirli is said to have told the Armenians that he has received explicit instructions from the U.S. National Democracy Institute to prepare for a "revolution" in Azerbaijan.

 

But two deputy chairmen of Yeni Fikir, Said Nuriev and Fikret Faramazoglu, gave a different account of Bashirli's encounter in Tbilisi at a press conference in Baku on 5 August, day.az reported. Nuriev said that Bashirli was offered the $2,000 by representatives of Georgian and Armenian "democratic forces." They said he was drunk at the time, and hypothesized that his drink may have been spiked. They said that Bashirli returned the money the following day. Legal expert Tofig Guliev told the same 5 August press conference that none of Bashirli's actions were unlawful and that there was no talk of seizing power in Azerbaijan. Bashirli's current whereabouts are not known.

 

This is by no means the first time that the Azerbaijani authorities have accused Armenian intelligence services of co-opting Azerbaijani citizens to commit criminal, or even terrorist acts. In April 1996, Azerbaijan's National Security Ministry claimed that Armenian intelligence recruited and trained Armenian members of the Daghestan-based Lezgin separatist organization Sadval who subsequently perpetrated a bomb attack on the Baku metro in March 1994 that killed 14 people.

 

Azerbaijani opposition politicians fear that Bashirli's arrest may be part of a campaign to discredit opposition in the run-up to the 6 November parliamentary election. In late July, Deputy Interior Minister Vilayat Eyubov alleged that the opposition has at its disposal an armed formation that is preparing a coup d'etat. Ali Kerimli, chairman of the progressive wing of the Azerbaijan Popular Front Party (AHCP), which is one of three prominent opposition parties aligned in the Azadlyg (Liberty) election bloc, denied that allegation, Turan reported on 25 July.

 

And on 4 August, Kerimli told Turan that the charges of plotting a coup brought against Bashirli are slanderous and "a routine attempt to discredit" Yeni Fikir. Kerimli explained that there is no connection between Yeni Fikir and the AHCP, and that the activities of the former are directed exclusively towards ensuring that the parliamentary ballot is free and fair. The AHCP released a statement late on 4 August demanding Bashirli's immediate release and appealing to the international community to intervene on his behalf, day.az reported.

 

Armenia's National Security Service issued a statement on 5 August dismissing as "ridiculous" allegations by the Azerbaijani Prosecutor-General's Office that it recruited Bashirli to spearhead a revolution in Azerbaijan, RFE/RL's Armenian Service reported. The statement questioned the professional qualifications of recently appointed Azerbaijani National Security Minister Eldar Mahmudov and likened the accusations against Bashirli to the trumped-up charges of espionage brought against potential rivals by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin in the 1920s and 1930s.

 

 

the only thing this guys are good at is making pathetic claims.

I mean come on Ali baba. Is your post really worth 20.000 dollars? you could accuse the guys of being bribed 200.000

[hytga]

oops i just saw a duplicate post of this.

i suppose you can delete this one mods