Azeri mass media are doing their best to conceal the details of the Azerbaijani and U.S. Presidents’ meeting in New York on September 24. Specifically, they are trying to “color” the principal part of the Aliev-Obama meeting, which dealt with the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process. Azeri mass media and the White House press office released radically different reports.

The White House official report says that the U.S. leader underlined the importance of maintaining ceasefire, as well as the need for a finding a peaceful solution on the basis of Helsinki Principles of nonuse of force or threat of force territorial integrity and peoples’ right to self-determination.

The Azerbaijan State Telegraph Agency referred to by all the TV and radio channels decided to get away with an evasive report, which does not contain a single word about President Obama’s specific position, particularly his attitude to the recent violations of ceasefire by Azerbaijan. According to the report, speaking of the Armenian-Azerbaijani, Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the two leaders pointed out the need for the speediest settlement of the problem in the context of regional peace and security. Further, the Azerbaijan State Telegraph Agency cites President Aliev alone, who once again referred to the well-known principle of territorial integrity, conveniently forgot about the equally important principles of nonuse of force and peoples’ right to self-determination. 

Moreover, the Azeri mass media provide “impartial” coverage of the part dealing with human rights problems in Azerbaijan. What they did was to report that the two leaders exchanged views on democratic development processes in Azerbaijan, whereas President Obama literally demanded the release of two Azeri bloggers.