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Azerbaijan National NGO forum addresses Open Letter to Korean Government

13 May 2025 17:12 (UTC +04:00)

The National NGO Forum of Azerbaijan has addressed an Open Letter to the Government of South Korea, APA reports.

The letter reads:

"To Mr. Cho Tae-yul, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Korea!

To the Embassy of the Republic of Korea in Azerbaijan!

To Mr. Woo Bomki, Director of the Jeonju Film Festival!

We – as the umbrella organization uniting hundreds of Azerbaijani NGOs operating in various fields – express our deep concern and astonishment that the film "There was, There was not" by Armenian-born screenwriter and director Emily Mkrtich, which is directed against the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Azerbaijan, was recently allowed to be screened at the Jeonju International Film Festival in Korea.

The film, which depicts the post-war lives of four ethnic Armenian women following the 44-day war, presents Azerbaijan’s Patriotic War in 2020 – launched to restore its territorial integrity – in a distorted and biased manner and it promotes unfounded allegations that Azerbaijan carried out ethnic cleansing during that period.

Presenting Azerbaijan’s formerly occupied sovereign territories under a fictitious name contradicts historical truth, international law, and the official position of the Republic of Korea.

We strongly condemn the Jeonju International Film Festival becoming a propaganda tool for a film that promotes occupation, separatism, extremism, ethnic and religious hatred, and revanchism.

The National NGO Forum of Azerbaijan calls on the festival’s leadership to remove the film from the festival’s official page and to ensure such incidents are not repeated in the future.

We believe that film festivals should serve as a platform for cultural exchange and strengthening ties between nations, not as a tribune for racist political ambitions or ethnic and religious hatred.

We trust that the Republic of Korea will conduct a thorough and swift investigation into the matter.

We also call on the Ambassador of the Republic of Korea to Azerbaijan to receive representatives of the National NGO Forum of Azerbaijan regarding this issue."