Zahra Badalbeyli, Azerbaijan's music coordinator on Eurovision Song Contest has told local news agency APA that the country will be ready to announce it's 2010 Eurovision Song Contest entrant and song in November of this year. She confirmed that the song will be selected once the singer is chosen and that the selection will include international panelists.

In an interview with local news agency APA, the music coodinator confirmed that selection of the singer and song to represent Azerbaijan at the 2010 Eurovision Song Contest by November, this means it is likely that Azerbaijan will be the first country to announce the artist and song for the competition in Oslo next May.

As yet, there has been no comment on the country's possible fine or explusion from the Eurovision Song Contest after the voting number for neighbouring Armenia was blocked from Azeri viewers' televisions during the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest and the ongoing EBU investigation into the reported interrogation of people who still voted for Armenia. Azerbaijan is still the confirmed host for the 2010 Eurovision Dance Contest and clearly has no doubt that it will be competing at the music competition in Oslo. The EBU will not comment until their investigations are concluded, should Azerbaijan be found to have broken the rules of the Eurovision Song Contest, a fine or ban from the competition could be enforced.

Speaking about the first round of the selection process, Badalbeyli said
“There was no proposal from outside the country. Only local singers attended the selection. It is no exception that we will send duo or group to the contest. Superior limit on the Eurovision stage is a six-member group. It will be determined in the next round. In the first round, video clips of the applicants were prepared. The selection will be made among those applicants in the next round. 5 or 10 applicants can win this round”.

Speaking about the next selection round, she said:
“The video clips and records will be sent to the local and foreign experts. We will send it to the experts of Sweden, Ukraine and other countries and will take into consideration their opinion in the selection of best candidate”.

On the subject of international collaboration for their 2010 Eurovision Song Contest, Badalbeyni told APA:
“Some foreign composers offered their pieces, but we didn’t receive their proposals yet, because it is too early to do it. We offered them to wait…We will receive song applications after the selection of the candidate. It is very important to provide systematic process because it is easy to choose the song after the selection of the singer”.

Earlier thisyear Aysel Teymurzadeh and Swedish based producer/singer Arash represented the country with Always and took third place at the Eurovision Song Contest in Moscow.

You can read the full interview with APA here and about the EBU investigation into voting problems with Azerbaijan here.