BAKU, October 15. /TASS/. The Foreign Ministry of Azerbaijan has banned several Russian female politicians and activists from entering the country after they visited the disputed Nagorno Karabakh region, its press service said on Monday.
The list includes among others first deputy chairperson of the Duma international affairs committee Svetlana Zhurova, writer Lyudmila Ulitskaya and the founder of Vera Hospice Charity Fund, Nyuta Federmesser. They visited the mostly Armenian populated Azerbaijani enclave within the framework of the Women for Peace initiative of Armenian prime minister’s wife, Anna Pashinyan, the press service said.
"Svetlana Zhurova, Lyudmila Ulitskaya, Anna Federmesser and some others were blacklisted for breach of republic’s legislation - for an illegal visit to occupied territories of Azerbaijan," it said.
Also on the list are head of the Volunteers Helping Orphans charity Yelena Alshanskaya, journalists Katerina Gordeyeva and Kira Altman, director of the DreamSki foundation Olga Shilova.
Earlier, the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry warned it would blacklist the Russian women visiting Nagorno Karabakh together with the wife of Armenian Prime Minister Nikola Pashinyan.
"Those who seek peace should not continue a war, those who want to avert human losses should not continue military occupation of the territory of another state. And finally, those who urge women and mothers to peace, should not send their children to military service on the territories of Azerbaijan recognized by the global community," it said.
The conflict between neighboring Armenia and Azerbaijan over the highland region of Nagorno-Karabakh, a disputed territory that had been part of Azerbaijan before the Soviet Union break-up but was mainly populated by Armenians, broke out in the late 1980s.
In 1991-1994, the confrontation spilled over into large-scale military action for control over the enclave and some adjacent territories after Azerbaijan lost control of them. Thousands left their homes on both sides in a conflict that killed 30,000. A truce was called between Armenia and the Nagorno-Karabakh republic on one side and Azerbaijan on the other in May 1994.
Talks on the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement have been held since 1992 in the format of the so-called OSCE Minsk Group, comprising along with its three co-chairs - Russia, France and the United States - Belarus, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Finland and Turkey. Baku insists Nagorno-Karabakh be an autonomy within Azerbaijan.