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Armenia moves to ban Western Union

25 August 2008 14:06 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Nijat Mustafayev â€“ APA-Economics. Azerbaijanâ€™s central bank has demanded local banks to halt operations with the worldâ€™s top payment transfer company, Western Union because it stopped providing services in the Nagorno-Karabakh at the request of Azerbaijan.
Observers said Armenian reacted to Western Unionâ€™s decision at Azerbaijanâ€™s request.
RIA Novosti quoted the central bank as saying Western Union violated the terms of agreements with Armenian banks by not making available services to the local banksâ€™ branches in the Nagorno Karbakh.
Illegally occupied by Armenia, the Nagorno Karabakh area is an internationlly recognized territory of Azerbaijan.
Azerbaijanâ€™s central bank gave green light to local banks to resume operations with payment transfer company Western Union and its smaller peer MoneyGram after the both companies promised to discontinue money transfer transactions with the occupied territories of Azerbaijan through Armenia.
Azerbaijan blocked Western Union and MoneyGram on July 30 and renewed clearance for money transfers through these systems on August 14.