Azerbaijan Blacklists 335 Foreign Nationals Over Visits to Nagorno-Karabakh

BAKU — Azerbaijan on Aug. 2 banned 335 foreign nationals – including European lawmakers, journalists and academics – from entering the country over visits they made to Nagorno-Karabakh, the Hurriyet Daily news reports.

The Azerbaijani foreign ministry released a list – including several deputies from France’s National Assembly, a member of the British House of Lords and a Spanish opera singer – of people declared personae non grata in the oil-rich former Soviet state.

The Head of the Press Service of the Ministry Elman Abdullayev has declared that Azerbaijan will expand the “persona non grata” list, which contains names of those people who visited Nagorno Karabakh “without Baku’s permission”.

The “persona non grata” list contains 14 deputies of Russian Parliament, 5 reporters of German ZDF TV channel, president of Berlin academy, deputies of Iranian, Slovakian, Argentinean parliaments, famous Russian economist Victor Sheinis, Baroness Cox, President of military academy of Denmark, Russian political scientist Sergey Marcedonov, 14 deputies of French parliament, Italian singer Al Bano, 8 deputies of European Parliament, reporter of Washington Post in Moscow Will Englund, reporter of New York Times Anastasia Taylor Wint, Phillip Kirkorov’s father – Bedros Kirkorov, famous opera singer Montserrat Caballe, a deputy of Canadian Parliament.

The list also includes 6 American doctors, 7 British deputies, a Greek deputy, 3 deputies of Swiss Parliament, editor in chief of EU foreign policy magazine, former EU special representative in South Caucasus Peter Samnabi, 5 deputies of Uruguayan parliament, famous Swiss cosmonaut Claudi Nikolia, 6 Australian deputies, a deputy of German Bundestag and other famous people.