The position stated by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on freedom of religion in Azerbaijan is extremely biased, Archimandrite Alexis Nikonorov, secretary of the Diocese of Baku, rector of the Cathedral of the Holy Myrrh-Bearing Women told Trend.
“It is worth recalling that exactly two months ago the president of a certain “International Christian Concern”Jeff King already presented a report on “persecution of the year” on the air of the American information channel Fox News, in which it was claimed that Azerbaijan by the end of 2023 entered the top 10 countries ‘on the scale of persecution of Christians’,” Archimandrite Nikonorov said.
“It is clear to the intelligent reader that numerous Western, predominantly American, human rights organizations do not have sufficient bureaucracy and infrastructure to obtain their reliable information on religious freedom in a given country and process it through their analytical strategies. They rely on information received from various, not always reliable, and often biased sources and analysts, including the opposition. Such information, of course, does not always honest positions of the informants. And it is not surprising that these conclusions often have nothing to do with reality,” he added.
Archimandrite Alexis Nikonorov believes that anti-Azerbaijani lobbyists interested in discrediting Azerbaijan and creating its negative image in the eyes of international political and public structures are behind the statements of the US Secretary of State.
“Azerbaijan has accumulated a unique centuries-old experience of peaceful coexistence and interaction, joint creative labor of Muslim, Christian and Jewish population. It is a unique phenomenon – there are practically no existing difficulties in Azerbaijan, which in many states and societies hinder the development of inter-religious dialog at the everyday level between ordinary citizens,” he explained.
Archimandrite emphasized that Azerbaijan pays special attention to cultural diversity in society and acts as a guarantor of the rights and freedoms of every citizen regardless of religious and national affiliation.
“The Constitution of the Republic of Azerbaijan enshrines a provision on the equality of all citizens before the law regardless of national, religious or language affiliation. At the same time, the State fully supports non-Muslim communities in their statutory activities, giving impetus to interreligious and multicultural dialog, which has long proved to be exemplary throughout the world. No secret that during the territorial conflict in the Karabakh region that lasted for 30 years, there were forces that wanted to give this confrontation a religious coloring,” Archimandrite Nikonorov said.
“But thanks to the wisdom of our people, the political will of the religious leader of the Caucasian Muslims Sheikh ul-Islam Allahshukur Pashazadeh, as well as the mediatory role of the Russian Orthodox Church, all such attempts were completely stopped. Azerbaijan’s successes, full restoration of territorial integrity, unity of society and other positive factors do not give rest to our enemies who are interested in weakening the political position of our country and its obvious leading role in the South Caucasus,” he added.
“They make attempts to portray Azerbaijan’s success in the de-occupation of its territory from Armenia as a confrontation between Pan-Turkist forces and Christians. The fact that the Christians mean exclusively the Armenian population of the Karabakh region, displaced to the neighboring republic at the urgent call of their political forces, which make money on the issue of “refugees”, is no secret. So the position voiced by Antony Blinken looks extremely unconvincing and biased. I am confident that this will not prevent Azerbaijan from moving forward, continuing to strengthen its political and economic power with full consolidation of public and civil institutions, being a model of inter-religious and inter-ethnic relations,” Archimandrite said.
On January 4, U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken announced that several countries, including Azerbaijan, have been added to a “special watch list” in connection with religious freedom.
