ANS Asked to Withdraw from Institute of Zoology

The contract on lease between the Institute of Zoology of the National Academy of Sciences and the television channel ANS has been terminated.

The Director of the Institute Elman Yusifov told Turan the lease was signed with the State Committee for Property Affairs. “The lease expired, and a new agreement has not been signed. So the process of returning the occupied space to our institute started. A commission has been created for the delivery and reception. ANS asked us to give them some time to carry their equipment to another place,” Yusifov said.

On July 18 the National TV and Radio Council (NTRC) deprived ANS of its broadcasting license for a period of one month. The reason for this step was the presentation from the prosecutor's office on the TV channel supporting terrorism and provocations to harm the strategic partnership between Azerbaijan and Turkey.

Then NTRC asked the court to deprive the TV channel of the broadcasting license issued on October 25, 2013.

At the same time, the licenses of ANS Radio and ANS Press were canceled.

The reason for such a severe action was the criticism of Erdogan’s actions during the attempted coup in Turkey on 15 July and the ANS interview with Fethullah Gülen, whom the Turkish authorities call organizer of the coup attempt.

Attempts of ANS to challenge the NTRC decision did not give any result in the courts.

ANS acted from November 1991. -03B-