Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev talked by phone with his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko on Wednesday.

According to Azerbaijani media outlets, “during the phone conversation, the sides touched on the successful development of bilateral Azerbaijani-Belarusian relations, expressing satisfaction with the official visit of President Lukashenko to Azerbaijan last year and the successful implementation of agreements reached during the visit. They expressed conviction that the ties between the two countries in the political, economic and other spheres will continue developing. [Apart from this,] The heads of states exchanged views on the prospects of bilateral relations and talked about the future presidential-level meetings.”

Afterwards, Aliyev thanked the Belarusian side and personally President Alexander Lukashenko “for the demonstration of just position and decisive steps [taken] in connection with Alexander Lapshin’s extradition to Azerbaijan over the criminal case launched against him under the relevant articles of the Azerbaijani Criminal Code. He considered this step as observation of the rule of law and international conventions, as well as manifestation of friendship and strategic partnership between Azerbaijan and Belarus.”

Alexander Lukashenko, for his part, thanked President Ilham Aliyev for his gratitude..

After his visits to Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) in 2011 and 2012, Alexander Lapshin was “blacklisted” by Azerbaijan. In June 2016, however, he paid a visit to Azerbaijan, but with a Ukrainian passport. Subsequently, he issued several articles criticizing the Azerbaijani authorities. Afterward, the Azerbaijani authorities issued an international search for this famous blogger. And on December 15, 2016, he was detained in the Belarus capital city of Minsk, and based on this international search.

On January 26, the Minsk city court dismissed the complaint of blogger Alexander Lapshin over the decision of the Belarusian prosecutor’s office to extradite him to Azerbaijan. 

The Supreme Court of Belarus on Tuesday dismissed the complaints filed in the case of blogger Alexander Lapshin.

According to the experts and human rights defenders, Lapshin’s case may become a horrible precedent limiting the freedom of speech of foreigners and freedom of movement of Armenian citizens.

Blogger Alexander Lapshin was brought to Baku Tuesday evening.