YEREVAN, JANUARY 22, ARMENPRESS. Azerbaijan needs an enemy in order to deviate its people’s attention from domestic social-political problems, blogger Alexander Lapshin said at a news conference in Yerevan.

“From the very beginning the story concerning me was made up for domestic use, for the less literate segment of the people. They need an enemy figure in order to deviate the people of Azerbaijan from true social-political problems. I am one of those reasons. If Lapshin didn’t exist, it would be necessary for them to invent Lapshin. And now they are writing and saying all the time how bad and horrible I am,” Lapshin said.

He says that Azerbaijan doesn’t need Karabakh, it actually needs a frozen conflict.

“Their most important enemy is Armenia”, he says. “They need a frozen conflict and a chance to explain the country’s corruption and impunity that everything is Armenia’s fault”.

Lapshin said that the current state propaganda of Azerbaijan is based on similar made up stories.

Alexander Lapshin is the Russian-Israeli tourism blogger who was arrested in Belarus and subsequently controversially extradited to Azerbaijan to serve a prison sentence for visiting Artsakh “without Azerbaijani authorization”. The move sparked outrage among human rights activists and journalists worldwide.

A Baku court sentenced him to 3 years in prison in 2017 summer. But after few months, President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev pardoned him.

Lapshin has said that an attempt against his life took place in the Baku prison.

Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan