"The media must be independent, objective, and impartial, regardless of where it operates or who owns it. Unfortunately, these basic principles of the media have long been forgotten. Today, in many cases, some media outlets have become the main tools of information warfare," MP Hikmat Babaoglu, a member of the Parliamentary Committee on Human Rights, has told Report.
According to him, even some media outlets sometimes act "more Catholic than the Pope" in the interests of the state to which they belong.
"We saw it during and after the 44-day war. This process will continue. One of such media outlets is Sputnik Azerbaijan."
The lawmaker stressed that Sputnik Azerbaijan's activities not only serve to further improve interstate relations but sometimes, on the contrary, are so biased that they damage them.
"However, the key to funding it and allowing it to operate in our information space is to serve as a reliable information bridge between two neighboring and friendly countries. We are seeing the opposite. It seems that the national and ethnic feelings of the head of this media outlet outweigh his responsibilities to the state of which he is a citizen. In this case, no party can allow any ethnic ambitions to harm the interests of two friendly and neighboring countries - Russia and Azerbaijan. Therefore, such issues must be stopped."