Anthony Bourdain Banned From A Country He Never Even Set Foot In
Folks from around the world often clamor for Anthony Bourdain to come visit their country as part of his show, Parts Unknown. For fans in Azerbaijan, unfortunately, the celebrity will never be able to film there, as the country just had Anthony Bourdain banned from visiting even though he’s never traveled there before.
The reason for the ban is because Bourdain violated Azerbaijani law by traveling to Nagorno-Karabakj, a controversial region of land currently occupied by Armenia. The region was originally part of Azerbaijan, but declared its own independence after the country refused to let it join Armenia. A full-scale war between the two nations later led to Armenia’s control of Nagorno-Karabaki at the cost of at least 25,000 lives on both ends. One million Azeri refugees still live in the region. Since then, relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan have been tense, and the latter nation has banned foreigners from entering the controversial region without the explicit permission of their government.
Unfortunately, as Bourdain failed to heed to that law, he was added to a blacklist of over 700 names of those barred from entering Azerbaijan ever again. He “has been put onto the persona non grata list for his disrespect of Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity and sovereignty,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hikmet Hajiyev told reporters. “Filming a food show on Azerbaijan’s occupied territory is an insult to one million Azerbaijani refugees who were forcefully expelled from their homes.”
As he’s never visited the country before, the ban means that we’ll never get to see Bourdain’s honest take on the local fare. It’s a blow for locals and fans around the world who ever hoped to see Anthony Bourdain eat his way through Azerbaijan.
