Azerbaijan has ordered the BBC to shut its office in the country, officials in Baku said Thursday, in what the British broadcaster denounced as a “move against press freedom.”

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has long faced accusations of stifling the media and persecuting political opponents in the energy-rich Caucasus nation.

Foreign ministry spokesman Ayahan Hajizade said Baku had told the BBC there was no “legal grounds” for it to operate a representative office in Azerbaijan, saying that Baku operated on the basis of “reciprocity.”

He did not elaborate further on the reasons for the forced closure.

In a statement, the BBC said: “Following verbal instructions from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan, the BBC has made the reluctant decision to close its office in the country.”

“We deeply regret this restrictive move against press freedom, which will hinder our ability to report to and from Azerbaijan for our audiences inside and outside the country.”

BBC’s Azeri language service has an audience of around one million people a week and had been operating in the country since 1994.

Azerbaijan’s Hajizade accused the BBC of trying to “politicise” the issue and of “double standards.”

He said that the closure of the local office does not affect the accreditation rights for one BBC correspondent.

Azerbaijan is one of the worst places in the world for media freedom, according to the Reporters Without Borders rights group.

“Virtually the entire media sector is under official control,” and “authorities are trying to suppress the last of the still-independent media, as well as journalists who reject self-censorship,” it says on its website.

Baku said “similar decisions” had been taken regarding “other foreign media organisations,” without providing further details.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)