SOCAR Releases A Statement

On August 2, TV Pirverli’s information program mentioned SOCAR company in the context of the case related to Azerbaijani blogger Hussein Bakikhanov.

The journalist visited SOCAR’s head office with heavy accusations and questions and asked the security officer that she wanted to meet with SOCAR managers.

"Though, we stress that she had not applied to SOCAR’s PR or marketing service that are responsible for communication with media agencies and journalists.

SOCAR has always tightly cooperated with the mentioned TV company and other media agencies and companies. We have never had communication problems with media. Regretfully, for unclear reasons, the journalist did not contact the corresponding department and applied to the security officer who could not contact the superiors being on vacation. Currently, SOCAR’s managers are genuinely absent, however, there would be no communication problems with them, if the journalist had applied to the PR service. In order to answer all questions, we wish to respond to the questions posed by the TV Pirveli’s journalist.

The company management has no information on the mentioned case. We have learned about this tragedy from media agencies. We have also heard accusations at TV companies as if SOCAR company’s employees, whose names and surnames are not mentioned, could be related to this case. If media agencies want to know whether SOCAR employees are in Georgia or not, the corresponding department can provide this information if the journalists specify names and surnames. We regret that TV Pirveli’s information service has decided to communicate with SOCAR company in this form with unsubstantiated accusations. We hope that next time, if they have any questions, media agencies contact PR service that will answer all their questions.