State Duma deputy banned from entering Azerbaijan
Offensive and threatening statements against Azerbaijan and its people by First Deputy Chairman of the Russian State Duma Committee on Tourism Nikolai Valuev are completely unacceptable. This was stated by the head of the press service of the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry Ayhan Hajizade. The Russian legislator was banned from entering Azerbaijan.
Baku emphasized that Nikolai Valuev made offensive statements while commenting on Azerbaijan's decision to close the "Russian House".
According to the statement by the country's Foreign Ministry, this is not the first such case: previously, the list of "undesirable persons" included First Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on CIS Affairs Konstantin Zatulin and Deputy Chairman of the Committee for the Protection of the Family Vitaly Milonov.
Recently, the Azerbaijani authorities sent the Russian side an official notification about the termination of the activities of the federal agency Rossotrudnichestvo in the country. In addition, Baku.tv, financed by the Azerbaijani government, accused the Rossotrudnichestvo-controlled Russian House project of spying, calling it a "hotbed of separatism and a nest of espionage." The Russian Foreign Ministry expressed bewilderment to Ambassador to Moscow Rakhman Mustafayev over a series of anti-Russian publications in Azerbaijani media. Then, Russian Ambassador to Baku Mikhail Yevdokimov was summoned to the Azerbaijani diplomatic department due to publications related to the crash of the AZAL plane near Aktau.
