Judo Diplomacy?: Armenian organizers raise flag, play anthem for Azeri judokas in Yerevan
Azerbaijan’s flag was raised five times and national anthem played once in the Armenian capital Yerevan over the weekend. This was part of a pledge made by the host party ahead of the European junior judo championships in Yerevan (September 11-13) that for the first time drew five participants from neighboring Azerbaijan, a country with which Armenia has been in a state of undeclared war since the 1991-1994 conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Armenian authorities reported no major incident during the championships and said all necessary security had been provided to the 15 members of the Azerbaijani delegation that also included coaches, doctors and medical personnel.
At the Yerevan championships, five Azeri athletes won a total of five medals, including one gold and one silver, finishing seventh in overall team competition. Team Armenia, meanwhile, managed one gold and two bronze medals, finishing ninth in the competition won by the team from Ukraine.
“Judo can also become a means for dialogue between the two peoples,” said Azerbaijani judo team head coach Aghayar Akhunzade at a press briefing on the first day of the competitions.
“Sport is not politics. Let politics remain politics.”
The Azeri delegation’s representative confirmed that security was provided at a high level.
Meanwhile, the Sports Ministry of Armenia denied information reported by some Azeri media that the minivan transporting the Azeri delegation to the sport complex had the flags of Georgia, Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh on it.
“This information does not correspond to the reality and is another Azeri misinformation,” the Ministry said.
Armenia and Azerbaijan are known for their troubled relations in sport after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the bloody war in Nagorno-Karabakh. The unresolved conflict still remains a major obstacle for athletes of one country to be present at sporting events hosted by the other.
Security concerns have also dogged sporting events involving Armenian and Azeri sportsmen held on neutral ground.
In January 2006 Armenia’s soccer champion Pyunik refused to play Baku’s Neftchi in the semi-final of the Commonwealth of Independent States Cup in Moscow to forestall possible clashes in the stands between Armenians and Azeris, who are known to have large ethnic communities in the Russian capital. Later that year, an Armenia v Azerbaijan match in the Under-19 European championship qualifying group tournament in Cyprus turned violent after some of the partisan Armenian Cypriot crowd overreacted to unsportsmanlike behavior, obscene gestures and constant provocations by several Azeri players and climbed the protective fence to step onto the pitch. Play stopped for half an hour and resumed only after police intervention. Those incidents led European football’s governing body, UEFA, to cancel two Euro-2008 qualifiers between the two countries’ senior teams planned for September 2007 in Baku and Yerevan.
Later that year, however, a 15-member team of Armenian wrestlers participated in the world championships in Baku. The Armenian delegation then acknowledged the high level of security provided to them. Also, the organizing party then raised the Armenian tricolor at the awarding ceremony after an Armenian wrestler managed to win a bronze medal.
Source: ArmeniaNow – Original Article
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