President Ilham Aliyev has decided to skip a planned visit to Riga on May 21 to attend an EU Partnership summit to be held in the Latvian capital, his political affairs aide Ali Hasanov said.
The decision to cancel the visit was because of Aliyev’s "tight schedule” as preparations for the next month’s inaugural European Games have entered the "final stage”, Hasanov told state news agency Azartac.
Aliyev’s office had earlier said he would attend the summit.
Pro-government news agency APA, meanwhile, said the change of the plan has to do with an "anti-Azerbaijan campaign” that has started in the West ahead of the Games.
Citing "diplomatic sources”, APA said President Aliyev refused to go to Riga in protest against a "large-scale” smear campaign that some Western-funded NGO’s have launched against Azerbaijan.
APA said that the president’s foreign affairs adviser, Novruz Mammadov, had warned the EU office in Baku that Aliyev would cancel the visit if the campaign didn’t stop.
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