Swiss election observer denied entry to Azerbaijan
Published: Sunday, Feb 4th 2024, 15:30
Updated At: Sunday, Feb 4th 2024, 15:30
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Swiss OSCE election observer and EPP National Councillor Nik Gugger (ZH) has had to leave the country in the Caucasus at the behest of the Azerbaijani authorities. The Federal Department of Foreign Affairs now intends to intervene with the Azerbaijani authorities through "the usual diplomatic channels".
The Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA) was aware of this incident, it wrote on Sunday at the request of the Keystone-SDA news agency in response to a report by Sonntagsblick. As a result, "the Azerbaijani ambassador here in Bern, for example, could be summoned," said FDFA spokeswoman Lea Zürcher on SRF radio.
Gugger travelled to Azerbaijan as an official and accredited election observer for the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and was supposed to report on the presidential elections next Wednesday.
At the request of Keystone-SDA, the Zurich National Councillor said that he had spoken to the Azerbaijani ambassador on the phone on Saturday afternoon. There will be a discussion on Monday and he himself is willing to talk: "If you want to make peace, you have to look for solutions in conflicts," said Gugger. But it is not acceptable to expel an accredited election observer without justification and temporarily take away his passport, even though the Swiss ambassador had intervened on site.
Gugger wants to travel to Baku again
Gugger assumes that the whole thing has to do with his work as a member of the Council of Europe. He now expects a clear answer during the discussion with the embassy. There has never been anything like this in Switzerland, where a member elected by parliament is expelled by a country, which is an affront. The National Councillor from Zurich has already taken part in many OSCE election observation missions, for example in Russia and Moldova. If possible, Gugger wants to travel to Baku again to evaluate the election results on Thursday.
As soon as he landed in the capital Baku, Gugger was stopped by the police at the diplomatic entrance. They confiscated his passport and refused him entry. Other OSCE observers were allowed through without any problems, including the Swiss delegation. The situation was deplorable and a scandal, Gugger told the newspaper.
The police detained the National Council member for almost three hours at Baku airport and then put him on a plane to Istanbul. He was only given his passport back in Turkey. He landed in Zurich at 2 p.m. on Saturday.
According to the FDFA, the Swiss ambassador in Baku was in regular telephone contact with Gugger on Saturday. The Swiss embassy in Baku had endeavored to support Gugger and was in contact with the Azerbaijani authorities.
Mass exodus of Armenians
Acting President Ilham Aliyev justified the early presidential election in Azerbaijan on February 7 by saying that his country had finally regained its sovereignty after decades.
This refers to the subjugation of the Nagorno-Karabakh region last fall, which triggered a mass exodus of 120,000 Karabakh Armenians to Armenia. Armenia controlled Nagorno-Karabakh and parts of Azerbaijan until 2020.
©Keystone/SDA
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