MOSCOW: The Kremlin on Tuesday slammed Azerbaijan’s detention of Russian journalists and urged Baku to release them, further escalating a diplomatic rift between the ex-Soviet neighbours.
Moscow and Baku been been embroiled in a spat after two ethnic Azerbaijanis died over the weekend following Russian police raids targeted at the diaspora in Yekaterinburg in a decades-old criminal case.
The incident sparked outcry in Baku, which has since detained three Russian journalists in a raid on the Sputnik state-run news agency and cancelled all Russian cultural events.
“We count on this highly emotional response being replaced by direct communication in which all questions will be answered,“ Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
He said Russia expected the journalists to be released “as quickly as possible”, and called the arrests “absolutely inconsistent with the common norms and rules.”
Relations between the ex-Soviet nations have been frosty since 38 people were killed in an Azerbaijan Airlines crash last December. Baku said the plane was hit by a Russian anti-aircraft missile.
Azerbaijani prosecutors on Tuesday opened a criminal case into alleged torture and deliberate murder of the two who died in custody in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg after their bodies were delivered to Baku for autopsies.
Russia said one person died due to a heart attack during the raid and that the other death was still under investigation.
Both countries — which rights groups say rank among the world’s worst for press freedom — summoned each other’s ambassadors for dressing downs amid the row.
