The French president of Franco-German channel Arte TV has responded to a protest from the Azerbaijani embassy over a film about Nagorno-Karabakh.
Azerbaijan's ambassador to France, Elchin Amirbayov, wrote the letter of protest about the 40-minute film, Haut Karabagh: Gomchassar, broadcast as part of Arte's Mountains of the World series on 14 July.
The ambassador said in the letter that the programme paved the way for Armenian propaganda and called on Armenia to obey international law.
Arte's leadership stopped a rebroadcast of the documentary after the embassy's letter, APA news agency reported.
A three-minute French-language clip from the 40-minute film can still be seen on the Arte website however.
Arte President Jerome Clement said in his letter to the embassy that the Mountains of the World series did not aim to cover the geopolitics of mountain regions, but to cover traditions, mythology or the main criteria of local development.
Clement said it was impossible to cover all the aspects of the problem of Nagorno-Karabakh in a short programme. He said the film made clear that the self-proclaimed "republic" was not recognized by the international community and a temporary ceasefire in the war with Azerbaijan had been declared.
Jerome Clement said he understood the sensitivity of the issue of territorial integrity for Azerbaijan and thanked the embassy for the invitation to visit the region.
The three-minute clip from the film gives a simplified, Armenian view of the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh.
The voice-over presents Karabakh as Christian land - "The Soviet authorities integrated this Christian Armenian land into Muslim Azerbaijan" - without mention of the historic mosques of Karabakh or the centuries of the Karabakh khanate.