The Press Service of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan has made a statement regarding a report published by the Organized Crime and Corruption reporting Project (OCCRP) on 4 September 2017, and articles published based on this report by the BBC News (headlined “Azerbaijan operated secret $3bn secret slush fund”, 5 September 2017) and The Guardian newspaper.

Axar.az reports citing APA.

“We state that neither the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan nor his family members have anything to do with the accusations made in these articles. The efforts to involve the President and his family in this issue are totally groundless, prejudiced and provocative in nature,” said the statement.

“We know that it is George Soros and his sidekicks – who have an international reputation of cheaters, tricksters, frauds and liars in relation to Azerbaijan and its leadership – that are behind this campaign. George Soros’s dirty actions should be seriously investigated. The Armenian lobby, which acts in concert with him, carries out a dirty campaign against the President of Azerbaijan and his family. But despite their efforts, this campaign has not yielded any results. The fact that one of the co-authors of the article, which was published by The Guardian newspaper, is Armenian Dina Nagapetyan once again shows that these dirty accusations are at the same time another disgusting action of the world Armenianism,” the statement said.