14:28, 21 October 2003

Ilkham Aliyev makes Musavat party leaders responsible for disorders in Baku

Ilkham Aliyev, new president elect of Azerbaijan, makes the Musavat party leaders responsible for disorders in Baku that flared up after the elections finished.

"We did not start the disorders, but Musavat leader Isa Gambar and his companions did start them," Aliyev declared in his interview to the "Rossiyskaya Gazeta". "All the responsibility for what happened lies with the Musavat opposition party and its leadership. The Musavat leader should await the condemnation of the Azerbaijan people as a provoker and man because of whom blood shed."

"These events showed the inability of a certain part of the opposition to change forms of struggle," Aliyev holds. "The mass disorders in Baku showed a true face of the radical opposition wing."

The disorders occurred in the center of Baku on October 15-16. They left one man dead and about 100 people injured. Activists of the opposition asserted that election results were falsified.

Source: RIA Novosti