From Baku with ‘Blacklists’: For the Love of Azerbaijan, Just Shut Up Already, Mr. Hajiyev

Hikmet Hajiyev is on a roll these days.

The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry spokesperson’s latest victim? None other than American food and television icon Anthony Bourdain, who was recently in Armenia and Artsakh to produce a segment on the region for his CNN television show, “Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown.”

Bourdain was recently in Armenia and Artsakh to produce a segment on the region for his CNN television show

Speaking to Russia’s RIA Novosti, Hajiyev confirmed that Bourdain would be put on the now-infamous (and ever-growing) Azerbaijani “blacklist” for “illegally visiting the occupied territories of Azerbaijan.”

In 2013, Hajiyev’s Foreign Ministry issued a list, which disclosed the names of more than 300 individuals from more than 40 countries, who had visited the Republic of Artsakh “without Baku’s permission.”

They were listed as “persona non grata”—unacceptable and unwelcome in Azerbaijan. Today, that list—published right on Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry’s website—has ballooned to nearly 700.

Parliamentarians, scientists, academics, artists, journalists, entertainers (the list goes on)—all of them accused of undermining “the national sovereignty and territorial unity” of Azerbaijan.

Late last week, Hajiyev tried something new and personally attacked—and threatened—Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) Executive Director Aram Hamparian in a series of tweets, accusing him of being a terrorist, racist, and a “mafia boss.”

“The Foreign Affairs [Ministry] is ‘punching down’ when it punches a lobby,” Hamparian said about Hajiyev’s latest move.