Azerbaijani NGOs urging to close down Russian embassy in Baku

Azerbaijani NGO representatives attempted to picket in front of the Russian embassy in Azerbaijan.

Representatives of the so-called Organization for the Liberation of Karabakh and the Committee for the Protection of Human Rights and Freedoms wanted in that way to express their protest against the strategic military partnership between Armenia and Russia.

According to the Azerbaijani news agency APA the picket was not authorized, and the police cracked down on the protesters and dispersed them. The protester, however, read out loud a declaration urging on Azerbaijani authorities to consider Russia as a state "undesirable for Azerbaijan" and to close down the Russian embassy in Baku.

It comes after Russian President Dmitry Medvedev paid a landmark visit to Armenia on August 20 reaffirming Moscow's strategic partnership with Yerevan.

During that visit five agreements were signed between Armenia and Russia of which two referred to building a new nuclear power plant in Metsamor and extending the duration of an agreement regulating the presence of the Russian military base in Armenia's second-largest town of Gyumri up to 49 years.