Azerbaijani authorities “revealing the spy network” will put an end to the Armenian-Azerbaijani joint projects with the participation of independent NGOs. The Azerbaijani news agency “Turan” reports referring to the joint statement of the Azerbaijani human rights activist Leyla Yunus and Armenian journalist Laura Baghdasaryan on the prosecution of Azerbaijani journalist Rauf Mirkadirov in espionage.

“We are two women – a human rights activist and a journalist – two mothers, one from Azerbaijan and the other from Armenia, cooperating for almost ten years. We stand shoulder to shoulder in the difficult task of creating and reinforcing the social dialogue between the two nations which are in a war for over 20 years. We go hand in hand for almost 10 years, releasing joint articles, books and finally creating the first and only unique joint website – publicdialogues.info. This is a platform for establishing a dialogue between Armenians and Azerbaijanis,” the statement reads.

The authors note that on the site created by them the citizens of Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Russia, Moldova, Ukraine, United States and European Union countries were talking, arguing, discussing important social problems. 

“We are against future wars! We are against the death and hatred between our children and grandchildren, we are against the policy sowing hatred, we are against the hatred atmosphere towards our neighbors,” write Leyla Yunus and Laura Baghdasaryan.

The statement notes that on April 19, 2014 the Azerbaijani authorities arrested Azerbaijani journalist Rauf Mirkadirov on charges of espionage for Armenia. He has been an active participant in numerous online and international conferences held on their websites. On April 22 by the order of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan a joint team of investigators and the Prosecutor General of Ministry of National Security was created aimed at “disclosing a large network of Armenia spies in Azerbaijan.” 

“It is easy to predict that this network is expected to include the members of our Dialogue. They have started to press on Laila already, the spouse of Arif Yunusov. Arif Yunusov, the author of eight books and over 230 articles on the modern history of the Caucasus, of the Karabakh conflict in particular, has been an active participant of international conferences in Armenian territory since 2001. Currently Arif Yunusov is hospitalized,” the statement reads. 

Azerbaijani news portal “Hakqqin.az” also reports that political scientist Arif Yunus, the director of the Institute for Peace and Democracy, is in a pre-infarction condition and is urgently hospitalized.

“Earlier media repeatedly disseminated information that Leyla and Arif Yunus may face the fate of detained journalist Rauf Mirkadirov because they also often visited Armenia and participate in projects of “people’s diplomacy,” writes the portal.

Rauf Mirkadirov, columnist of Azerbaijani newspaper “Zerkalo”, was arrested on April 18 in Ankara on charges of expiration of documents. On April 19 Mirkadirov was deported to Azerbaijan, where he immediately was arrested and put in custody by the MNS on suspicion of treason. On April 21 the court in Baku sanctioned his arrest for three months. Mirkadirov is accused of the cooperation with special services of Armenia, specifically, he is accused of making the transfers of the state secret information, including those about the dislocation of Azerbaijani Armed forces to Armenia during 2008-2009.