Posted on 07/20/2016 4:41:03 PM PDT by Fitzy_888
Azerbaijan, a strategic ally of Turkey, has suspended a national TV station that reportedly planned to broadcast an interview with Fethullah Gülen, the Pennsylvania-based imam who Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan blames for instigating a failed coup.
In a July 19 statement, Azerbaijan’s National Council for Television and Radio announced that it would suspend for one month the privately run ANS TV’s broadcasts “to prevent the provocation aimed at undermining the strategic cooperation relations between Turkey and Azerbaijan, and not to allow the open propaganda of terrorism,” Trend news agency reported.
The Council added that it also would sue to have the station’s license revoked. Prosecutors on July 19 brought in Vakhid Mustafayev, head of ANS’ parent company, and the TV station’s general director, Mirshahin Agayev, for questioning.
Although authorities provided no details about the alleged “provocation,” ANS TV had announced an upcoming broadcast of an interview with Gülen. Station executives have not commented on the suspension.
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The crackdown on ANS TV came a day after a phone call between Erdoğan and Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev. Signs are emerging that Turkey is pressing for changes, too, to Azerbaijan’s north, in Georgia, where the Turkish consulate in the town of Batumi announced plans to petition the government to cancel the license of one Gülen-linked private school. Tbilisi has not yet responded.
Aliyev has denounced the botched coup against Erdoğan, calling it “a monstrous crime.” His top political advisor, Ali Hasanov, indicated to reporters that the 54-year-old Azerbaijani leader had been up all night on July 15-16 worrying about Turkey.
As well he might.
Turkey was the first state to recognize Azerbaijan’s independence in 1991, and has served as the Caspian-Sea country’s chief ally in Baku’s nearly 30-year struggle with Armenia for control of the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave.
“If Turkey had lost, it means Azerbaijan and our Karabakh fight would be lost,” said Panah Huseyn, who served as prime minister in 1993, during the hot phase of the Karabakh war, and who also is a former member of the Azerbaijan-Turkey inter-parliamentary working group.
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I suppose Azerbaijan would be Armenian had their not been a Turkish Jihad...
Funny how a NATO state fighting a coup attempt never makes the news.
Didn’t the Obama admin leak that Israel would use this country for a strike on Iran some years back?
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