Protestors outside Place du Luxembourg in the run up to the Baku European Games. FIDH/flickr. some rights reserved.
On the fourth of July, while America celebrated Independence Day, OSCE representation in Baku ceased to exist. In 2013 Baku lowered the OSCE’s representation to Baku to a “project-coordinator” level. Now, the coordinator, Alexis Chahtahtinsky, has been forced to leave.
Whilst the choice of date may have been coincidental, the Azerbaijani leadership chose the Fourth of July as a deadline for the OSCE to close its office and leave Azerbaijan, with the OSCE’s website stating that“…[O]perations in Azerbaijan were discontinued on 4 July. The OSCE remains open to other forms of co-operation with Azerbaijan”.
