Monday, February 5 2024 10:03

ArmInfo.Zurich Airport, Saturday afternoon: EPP National Councilor Nick Gugger (53) returns  from a trip that will make international headlines. Twelve hours earlier there was a scandal in the Azerbaijani capital Baku - the regime threw the Swiss politician out of the country.

Gugger is upset. Behind the scenes the diplomatic wires are glowing.  Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis (62) was informed about the incident  early on Saturday morning.

"What happened there is a scandal," says the EPP politician over  coffee with a view at Zurich Airport. He hasn't slept in over 30  hours.

The incident is actually explosive. Gugger traveled to Azerbaijan as  an official and accredited election observer of the Organization for  Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). His mission on site:  observe the upcoming presidential elections and report violations of  human rights. Gugger has experience in this, having already been on  similar missions in Russia and Moldova.

But he has never experienced what happened on Saturday night. As soon  as he landed in Baku, he was stopped at the diplomatic entrance by  uniformed police officers. They confiscated his passport and refused  him entry. Other OSCE observers were allowed through without any  problems - including the Swiss delegation.

"The fact that the Azerbaijani regime is so disavowing an observer  mission is a new level of escalation," says Gugger. "The situation  was distressing." Azerbaijan must immediately declare itself to the  OSCE.

The police held the National Councilor at Baku airport for almost  three hours, bought him tea and then put him on a plane to Istanbul.  He only got his passport back in Turkey. He landed in Zurich at 2  p.m. on Saturday.

The Foreign Ministry (EDA) confirmed the incident to Blick: "We are  aware of it." The Swiss embassy in Baku tried to support National  Councilor Nick Gugger. "The FDFA will intervene with the Azerbaijani  authorities through the usual diplomatic channels."

The fact that a registered OSCE observer is not allowed into a  country is a diplomatic affront and occurs extremely rarely.

The elections in Azerbaijan will take place next Wednesday. But the  winner has already been decided:  dictator Ilham Aliyev (62) will  continue to rule. There are no fair elections in Azerbaijan. In the  democracy index of the British magazine "Economist" the country is  ranked 134th out of 167.

It is not yet clear why exactly Gugger was not allowed into the  country. But it could be related to his work in the Council of  Europe. Just last week, the regime in Baku announced that it would  not accept election observers from the Parliamentary Assembly of the  Council of Europe (Pace). Since Gugger, in addition to his  involvement with the OSCE, is also an election observer for the  Council of Europe, he could have ended up on a blacklist. The  Azerbaijani embassy in Bern could not be reached for comment.

Gugger's political involvement in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict could  also be a thorn in the side of the dictatorship in the Caucasus. Last  September, the Azerbaijani army conquered the unrecognized micro-  republic and expelled more than 100,000 Christian Armenians. National  Councilor Gugger publicly protested against the violence and also  sent his criticism to the Azerbaijani ambassador.

"I have been campaigning for peace for years and trying to build  bridges," says the EPP politician. The fact that the regime in Baku  is now banning him from the country is frustrating and shows that  Azerbaijan is still far from a constitutional state.