In December, the head of the Azerbaijan Human Rights Center, Eldar Zeynalov, said “nothing like this has happened before,” in reference to Baku’s arrest of a foreign citizen for writing on Nagorno-Karabakh, Kommersant reported.
“Those who visited or supported Nagorno-Karabakh were often placed on a blacklist and not allowed to enter the country; but never did they demand another country to extradite a foreigner on this matter; only citizens of Azerbaijan were threatened with this,” Zeynalov added.
On Thursday, the Kremlin said it would not intervene.
“This is not a topic for the Kremlin,” state-run TASS news agency cited Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying.
Russian human rights ombudsperson Tatyana Moskalkova, however, said that according to international convention, the Russian Foreign Ministry has the right to demand Lapshin be allowed to return to Russia in order to stand trial, Interfax news agency reported.
“Negotiations are underway,” the agency cited Moskalkova as saying to reporters.