Poroshenko's comrade-in-arms dragged Ukraine into an international scandal by calling for the overthrow of power in Azerbaijan
Ukrainian politician, people's deputy from the Poroshenko Bloc and former ally of Yulia Tymoshenko Vladimir Aryev found himself at the center of an international scandal.
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Today Azerbaijani media came out with sensational headlines:
“The PACE Vice-President called for the overthrow of the government in Azerbaijan.”
As it turned out, Aryev, who holds the position of vice-president from Ukraine in the European institution, without thinking with his head, wrote a post on his Facebook in which he called the regimes in Armenia and Azerbaijan “authoritarian” and called for their overthrow.
“The Georgians acted wiser, but these (Armenians and Azerbaijanis - PolitNavigator) will continue to squabble until the authoritarian leaders of both countries are demolished sooner or later,” the Ukrainian politician wrote.
Thus, it turned out that due to the irresponsibility of a person who wrote anything on a social network, Ukraine almost found itself drawn into a conflict with two Transcaucasian states, which themselves do not really get along with each other.
Naturally, this event was immediately noticed in Kyiv. But not in the Ukrainian parliament or government, but in the Azerbaijani diaspora.
The United Diaspora of Azerbaijanis of Ukraine (UDAU) appealed to the Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada Vladimir Groysman. As reported to Vesti.Az in the ODAU, the letter notes that the Azerbaijani diaspora is protesting against the statement of the Verkhovna Rada deputy from the Petro Poroshenko bloc and PACE Vice-President Vladimir Ariev, written on the social network Facebook, in which he called for the overthrow of the government in Azerbaijan.
The appeal notes that Aryev’s statement is regarded as interference in the internal affairs of Azerbaijan and a provocation that undermines Ukrainian-Azerbaijani relations. ODAU demanded that V. Groysman condemn and give an appropriate assessment of Aryev’s statement.
“The Azerbaijani people support their president, and we regard Vladimir Aryev’s statement as an unfriendly step aimed at worsening relations between our countries,” the statement emphasized.
Later, Arev backed down and retracted his words, and his Facebook post disappeared.
As the would-be politician himself said in a comment to the Azerbaijani website minval.az, "I did not call for the overthrow of the government in Azerbaijan.”
Even later, Poroshenko’s comrade-in-arms apologized on his Facebook page.
“I had a conversation with the head of the Azerbaijani delegation to PACE. They were offended that I called the regime in Baku authoritarian (the Armenian one, by the way, too), and seemed to call for the overthrow of both regimes. Well, the call is different from assessing the situation as authoritarianism from democracy. And I was just giving an assessment, and not calling for anything. As for the authoritarianism of the regime. The PACE resolution points to significant violations of freedom of speech and persecution of the independent press in Azerbaijan, the imprisonment of human rights defenders and violations of human rights. And so, of course, there is no authoritarianism. I apologize,” he wrote on his Facebook page.
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