Azerbaijani APA Agency Distorts Toivo Klaar's Statement, Armenian Media Spread It: Civic

“There is a normalization process underway after 30 years of conflict... The important thing is that there is political will from the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan to overcome this history of conflict, and we believe that President Aliyev is committed to the process, as is Prime Minister Pashinyan. But time is needed; this is not easy,” said Toivo Klaar, the European Union’s Special Representative for the South Caucasus and the Crisis in Georgia, in an interview with the Azerbaijani APA agency.

However, the Azerbaijani APA agency distorted Toivo Klaar's words in the Russian version of its website, translating it as follows: “We believe that President Aliyev is committed to the process, while Prime Minister Pashinyan has obligations.”

This incorrect translation in Russian has been taken up by several Armenian opposition media outlets that published it, with some even using the statement that Klaar did not say, “President Aliyev is committed to the process, while Prime Minister Pashinyan has obligations,” as the headline.

Civic.am contacted Toivo Klaar's press secretary Henri Duken to clarify whether Toivo Klaar's words were accurately represented in the Azerbaijani APA agency’s Russian version, and if so, what obligations Prime Minister Pashinyan has, as well as whether the withdrawal of troops from the territory of Armenia, the return of prisoners of war, and the opening of the Lachin Corridor are not obligations for Aliyev.

In response to our inquiry, Toivo Klaar's press secretary Henri Duken first requested that we refer solely to the interview published in English, then noted that he also noticed mistakes in the Russian version. “Please refer exclusively to the original version in English. As I also noticed mistakes in the Russian translation on APA’s website, I asked them to correct it, and now you will see that the Russian version corresponds to the original interview in English,” he wrote.

The Azerbaijani APA agency’s different translation of the same word, namely that it was expressed in the same sentence describing the approaches of the leaders of the two countries to the process, is unlikely to have been an unintentional error.