Azerbaijan's defence ministry said on Friday it was looking into the whereabouts of one of its senior officers, who was reported to have applied for political asylum while studying on a NATO course in Belgium.Unconfirmed reports in the local media say that Lieutenant Colonel Firuz Gassymov went absent without leave from his course in Brussels and approached an unnamed foreign embassy to ask for asylum.
Defence ministry spokesman Ramiz Melikov declined to confirm the reports but said: "Things are unclear at the moment. We are conducting an investigation."
If the reports are confirmed, it will be a serious embarassment for Azerbaijan, an oil-rich former Soviet republic which prides itself on the strength of its armed forces.
But it is not the first time that the military has created awkward moments for the country's leaders.
Last year, almost the entire student faculty at Azerbaijan's most prestigious military academy went absent without leave in protest at their living conditions.
And earlier this year, an Azeri officer on a NATO course in Hungary was charged with murder after an Armenian officer studying alongside him was hacked to death with an axe as he slept.
The Azeri officer is now in jail in Budapest awaiting trial.
Azerbaijan and Armenia fought a war in the early 1990s over the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, a dispute which is still unresolved.
All rights reserved. Copyright 2003 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.
Quick Links
SpaceWar
Search SpaceWar
Subscribe To SpaceWar Express
