AZERTAC-ANTARA cooperation discussed in Jakarta

Jakarta, February 23, AZERTAC Azerbaijani Ambassador to Indonesia Tamerlan Qarayev has met with head of the country's National News Agency (ANTARA) to discuss how to enhance the cooperation between Azerbaijan State News Agency (AZERTAC) and ANTARA. The meeting participants included incoming Indonesian Ambassador to Azerbaijan Husnan Fananie, former ANTARA President Director Saiful Hadi Chalid and chief of International Cooperation Bureau Bambang. Later Azerbaijani Ambassador met with Boni Hargens, ANTARA`s newly-appointed CEO. During the meetings the sides recalled the memorandum of understanding on exchange of cooperation which was signed between AZERTAC and ANTARA in Jakarta in 2007. The sides stressed the importance of referring to the first source of information about the events taking place in both countries. Indonesian journalists underlined that they attached great importance to cooperation with AZERTAC, expressing their intention to develop relations with friendly and fraternal Azerbaijan in the field of media. The Azerbaijani Ambassador briefed the media representatives on the meetings held by the embassy within the "Justice for Khojaly" campaign. He noted that some international media outlets release biased and untrue articles about Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Khojaly genocide, as well as the current events in the region, saying “this serves the interests of certain circles”. "In some cases, information taken from that international media are published in various media outlets in the region as well as in Indonesia," Qarayev added. “The main goal of this type of information disseminated by known circles is to hide the fact that military aggression of Armenia against Azerbaijan resulted in the occupation of 20 percent of the country's territory and more than one million Azerbaijanis` becoming refugees and internally displaced persons.” "In this regard, the expansion of cooperation and exchange of information between Azerbaijani and Indonesian national news agencies is of pivotal importance and will play a key role in preventing the spread of such false information,” he added.