Azerbaijan Returns To Junior Eurovision Song Contest

Azerbaijan's young talent, Yagmur Nasrullayeva, will represent the country at the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2025, Azernews reports.

The decision was announced at a press conference, which was attended by the head of the Azerbaijani delegation, Nurlana Jafarova, the media director of the Azerbaijani Eurovision delegation, Turab Teymurov, and the Eurovision advisor to the ITV General Director, Maksim Tsurkov.

It was noted that the selection process was quite intense. Over 60 applications were received for the competition. From these, the top 15 participants were selected to proceed to the next stage, and the winner was ultimately chosen. The jury for the selection process consisted of well-known artists, including People's Artist Siyavush Karimi, Honored Artists Govhar Hasanzade and Vugar Jamalzade, arranger Vugar Bakhish, former Eurovision participant Samira Efendi, and the chief director of the Azerbaijan State Academic Music Theater, Javid Imamverdiyev.

Yagmur Nasrullayeva shared her impressions, stating that she has already represented her country with honor at many international competitions. She earned third place at the joint competition between Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan in Astana:

"I believe that this time, through the Eurovision contest, I will be recognized by a much larger audience. I am currently studying in the 2nd grade at the 5th Art School. My family and teachers have always supported me."

The Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2025 will be the 23rd edition of the competition, scheduled to take place on December 13, 2025, at the small hall of the Olympic Palace in Tbilisi, Georgia.

Organized by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and hosted by the Georgian Public Broadcaster (GPB), the event follows Georgia's victory in the 2024 contest with Andria Putkaradze's song "To My Mom." This will mark the second time Georgia hosts the contest, the first being in 2017.

Azerbaijan has been taking part in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest since its tenth edition in 2012. The country's representative broadcaster for the event is İctimai Television (İTV).

Initially, Azerbaijan used a national final to select its entries, debuting in 2012 with the song "Girls and Boys" (Dünya Sənindir) by Omar & Suada, which placed eleventh out of twelve participants.

After competing again in 2013 and finishing seventh, İTV withdrew from the contest in 2014 for reasons that were not disclosed.

The broadcaster returned in 2018 but finished sixteenth out of twenty participants, then withdrew once more for the next two years.

Azerbaijan made its return in 2021, selecting "One of Those Days" by Sona Azizova, who secured Azerbaijan's best result to date with a fifth-place finish out of 19 entries.

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