Azerbaijani MFA: Restoration of illegal hotel reservation in Karabakh by booking.com serves to money laundering

Baku. 17 November. REPORT.AZ/ "The booking.com, which carries out hotel reservation through the Internet, has suspended illegal reservation in the occupied  territories of Azerbaijan by Armenian armed force after strong protest by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan (MFA) and Ministry of Culture and Tourism. Investigation revealed that booking.com, registered in the Netherlands has restored its activity and begun to carry out hotel reservations from the occupied territories of Azerbaijan".

The spokesperson of the Azerbaijani Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Hikmat Hajiyev told Report.

He emphasized that promotion of the occupied territories of Azerbaijan as a tourist destination by booking.com and hotel reservations there is completely contrary to the norms and principles of international law, Charter of the World Tourism Organization, Global Code of Ethics for Tourism, relevant decisions and recommendations of the WTO Executive Board: "Promotion of the occupied territories, where bloody ethnic cleansing was committed against more than one million Azerbaijanis, as a tourist destination and hotel reservations there does not fit to the moral framework.

However, occupied territories of Azerbaijan are closed for legitimate international money transfers, online payments through booking.com and hotel reservation and booking.com's revenue from it mean illegal international payments and money laundering.

Unfortunately, incompatible with ethical standards of corporate business, the company creates frivolous impression about itself with such behavior and harms its reputation".

Hajiyev said that the MFA and Ministry of Culture and Tourism conduct coordinated measures on this issue. According to him, an instruction was sent to the Embassy of Azerbaijan to the Netherlands.