“The US is concerned over Russia’s growing presence in the South Caucasus”: Azeri press digest

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Politics

The country that tries to solve the Karabakh problem by force will be expelled from the Council of Europe, Azeri Press reports PACE President Rene van der Linden as saying. Van der Linden does not consider the CE membership possible for the country that would use armed force to resolve the conflict, if a new war breaks out in Nagorno Karabakh. In this case PACE will have to discuss the possibility of that country’s further membership in the CE. Van der Linden urges the parties to the Karabakh conflict to stop their bellicose statements and to realize that the conflict can be resolved only by peaceful measures. Van der Linden also says that if Azerbaijan holds non-democratic elections, the mandate of its PACE delegation will be reviewed.

In his turn, head of the public and political department of the Azeri president staff Ali Gasanov says: “If they in the Council of Europe want to freeze the powers of our delegation, let them do that. But nobody has the right to threaten us.” “Azerbaijan is an independent state and has its own state interests. And nobody, including PACE President Rene van der Linden, has the right to threaten us,” says Gasanov. (Echo)

The two radar stations built in Azerbaijan with the US’ support are intended for strengthening the frontier control, Trend reports Azeri Foreign Minister Elmar Mamedyarov as saying in Washington. He says that “those stations are part of our program to protect Azerbaijan’s state frontier.” Mamedyarov explains that the problem of frontier control arose after the collapse of the Soviet Union. “Now we are an independent state and must do it by ourselves, particularly, protect our sector of the Caspian Sea. And here we certainly cooperate with the US.” Mamedyarov confirms that in the framework of this cooperation Washington provides Baku with special equipment. “All this equipment will go into Azerbaijan’s property.” He notes that the project to build radar stations has no direct relation to the security of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline and the energy projects in the republic. “We do cooperate to ensure the security of the BTC, we have several programs. But they are parts of the general measures to fight terrorism and to protect oil platforms, as most of our oil comes from the sea. We are interested in the US’ experience, and the Americans share it with us,” says Mamedyarov. He says that the Azeri-US military cooperation is “quite good in principle.” “The US helps us to reform our army so that we can face the present risks and challenges in the region.” “In this context our cooperation is quite active,” says Mamedyarov.

The US is concerned over Russia’s growing presence in the South Caucasus, US congressman, chairman of the sub-committee on foreign assignments Jim Kolbe said at a news conference in Baku on April 13. One of the first questions was about Section 907 (Adopted in Oct 1992 and cancelled by the Senate in 2001, Section 907 of the Freedom Support Act forbade the US government to provide direct assistance to Azerbaijan because of that country’s blockading Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh — REGNUM).

The author of the question called Kolbe the architect of the section. Kolbe said right away that he is not. He said that now that the Karabakh agreement is not far off, one can well take time with the full abrogation of the section. But the next moment he said that after the peace agreement the US Congress may provide financial assistance for the recovery of the territories devastated by the conflict, says Zerkalo.

The daily continues: “Explaining why Azerbaijan has not been involved in the Millennium Challenge program, Kolbe said that the JCC criteria were the quality of government and the rate of corruption in the applicant countries. At the same time, he noted that Azerbaijan has made certain progress in the above criteria. Concerning the authoritarian growth of Russia’s presence in the South Caucasus, Kolbe said that the US is actually concerned over Russia’s growing presence in the region. But this growth is due to not only military but also economic motives, and Russia, certainly, has ones in the region. In conclusion, Kolbe said that the US supports the independence of the region’s countries and the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline and the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzerum gas pipeline are the factors that will strengthen their independence.” (Zerkalo)

Zerkalo concludes: “We must finally stop just declaring reforms. Only by fully renouncing ‘National Declarativism’ and by going from words to actions in the democracy and market economy building, will Azerbaijan be able to qualify for a full value role in the Euro-Atlantic space. Only true reforms will make us real partners to the US, who will help us to free Shusha from the Russian-Armenian captivity…”

The split in the Azeri opposition is the evidence of its weakness, the head of the OCE office in Baku Maurizio Pavesi says on April 14. He says that the OSCE is not going to arrange a dialogue between the Azeri authorities and opposition. This process will be resumed later. Concerning the Mar 13 parliamentary reelections in Azerbaijan, Pavesi says that an OSCE mission, led by Ambassador Irens, will monitor this process. (Trend)

“The authorities are enlarging the list of means that can be used in dispersing rallies,” reports Real Azerbaijan. The objective of the bill submitted by the presidential administration to the parliament is to enlarge the list of means allowed for dispersing rallies and pickets. The authors of the bill want to add to rubber clubs, tear-gas, water-jets and dogs – electric shock, rangers and rubber bullets. They also propose allowing interior troops to take part in the dispersal of illegal actions. The opposition MPs said that the bill will, in fact, allow the authorities to legalize the measures they have already used for dispersing rallies. For example, the interior troops have already been used in such measures even though the law says nothing about that. The oppositionists noted that such measures might be good for riots in penitentiaries, but never for peaceful rallies. After such criticism by the opposition, the parliament decided to send the bill back to the authors for revision.

On April 13, the Azeri Committee against Tortures published its report for 2005. The chairman of the committee Elchin Behbudov says that 80,000 people – including political prisoners — were tortured in Azeri remand cells in 2005. Three persons died as a result: former candidate for deputy Etibar Asadov, serviceman from Ganca Elnur Bagirov and resident of Sumqayit Nadir Veliyev. 29 people arrested during the May 21, 2005 opposition rally were beaten in custody. The report also gives the names of those who applied violence against citizens: the investigator of the Baku municipal prosecutor’s office Maherram Azizbekov, the head of the 30^th police department of Surahan district Fuad Mamedov, deputy head of the police department of Zaqatali district Javanshir Babayev, the employee of the Jalilabad district police department Ibrahim Ibishev, the deputy head of the Saliani district police department Mirzaga Gafarov, the employee of the Agdash district police department Mehman Pashayev and the former warrant officer of the N military unit of Terter district Altay Bayramov. The ACAT’s report gives a generally negative assessment of the custody conditions in the Azeri jails. (Real Azerbaijan)

Azerbaijan-PACE

Bulgarian MP Alexander Arbajiyev has reported to PACE on the human rights situation in the army. He says that human rights are violated in many CE armies. He says that 5,000 Azeri soldiers have died of various diseases and malnutrition. (Azeri Press)

Azeri delegate to PACE Elmira Akhundova says that the 5,000 toll in the report is not true. This is unverified statistics by NGOs. She admits that Azeri soldiers die on a daily basis but not of ailments or hunger but from Armenian bullets. Akhundova advises to be careful with some of the report’s recommendations and objects to the proposal to allow soldiers to join political parties. She says that in some countries the call-up of women is undesirable due to local mentality and historical traditions. (Echo)

Excerpts from the interview of military expert, former political prisoner Janmirza Mirzoyev to Day.Az:

“Bulgarian MP Alexander Arbajiyev has verbally reported to PACE on the human rights situation in the army. The section on Azerbaijan says that 5,000 soldiers have died of various diseases and malnutrition in the Azeri army. Is this figure true?”

Honestly, I have no such figure. I can just say that 800 dystrophic youths were called up in 1996-2000. I am very careful with figures. In my opinion, Arbajiyev’s figure is very much.

And did anybody of those 800 youths die?

I have no precise figures. I just can say what I know. I know that 4 people died in the night of Nov 10-11 1998 – reportedly of alimentary dystrophy – that is, of hunger. Later “alimentary dystrophy” was replaced by “frostbite.” But there is an original document by pathologist. Besides, a person suffering from alimentary dystrophy can well die of cold, high temperature and also of frostbite…"

“In the last 5 years I have visited Azerbaijan 25 times. I will not take part in the parliamentary reelections because I am not satisfied with the results of the past elections. There should have been reelection in, at least, 50 districts. My long silence and absence from Azerbaijan were due to this very fact. Sometimes, such composure also takes strength,” the co-rapporteur of the PACE monitoring committee on Azerbaijan Andreas Gross says in an interview to Azeri Press. Asked if he is going to quit as co-rapporteur on Azerbaijan, Gross reminds APA that some time ago he was declared almost persona non grata by the Azeri authorities: “Then I observed the referendum. They tried to turn me out as early as Aug 2002. The Azeri government has long been appealing to the CE for stopping my activities as co-rapporteur. But my mission can be stopped by me or my colleagues. I will continue my work because I work, first of all, for the benefit of the Azeri people.”

The statements on the necessity to defend the rights of national minorities are used by some states as a tool of aggression against other states, which is a form of Fascism, Trend reports Aydin Mirzazadeh, member of parliamentary delegation of Azerbaijan to PACE, as saying at the Assembly’s session on preventing the dissemination of the Fascism ideology. “Fascism is widely spreading in the world today,” Mirzazadeh said.

“For instance, Armenia, covering its true intentions by the wish to protect the rights of the Armenians living in Azerbaijan, has occupied part of the country’s territory and has expatriated over million of people just because they were Azeris.” Mirzazadeh also mentioned the devastation of numerous historical and cultural monuments by Armenians. “They destroyed even monuments to well-known Azeri poets.” Mirzazadeh urged the PACE MPs to come to Baku and to see with their own eyes the shelled monuments. Mirzazadeh meant the fragments of the statues of three Azeri dramatists, which were brought from Shusha and mounted in front of the presidential residence. "The tolerance of such steps by Armenia may become a precedent for the recurrence of such a form of “Fascism,” Mirzazadeh said.

Azerbaijan-US

Azeri President Ilham Aliyev will meet with US President George Bush in the White House Apr 28. While announcing the meeting in a traditional morning briefing then-White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan called Azerbaijan the US’ “key ally” in a strategically important region of the world and “a valuable partner on Iraq.” (AzerTag)

Commenting on Aliyev’s visit to the US, Real Azerbaijan says: “In late April the neo-monarchic regime of Azerbaijan will finally ‘discover America.’ Unlike the former Azeri president, whom the White House gave a vote of confidence and a wing of protection at once, the present one faced paradoxical ambiguity from the very beginning. On the one hand, the US authorities did their best to ensure succession of power in Azerbaijan and have actively supported Ilham Aliyev’s non-democratic regime from the very first day of his ‘enthronement’ (one example is the last parliamentary elections), but, on the other hand, they have demonstratively kept him away from the White House and have permanently slated him in public for conducting policies that strongly compromised the attractive inauguration calls of the US president.”

“The unexpected news about the forthcoming visit has been snatched by all media and has inspired analysts into theorizing about why Aliyev was invited to the US and why he was boycotted by Washington for so long. This is the first official visit of the new Azeri president to the leading world power. For several days the Azeri propaganda kept hinting that the US experts have realized the importance of Aliyev’s visit. The ruling elite were just happy that the Bush team had finally allowed the new Azeri president to visit the White House. This story has ‘a strange prehistory,’ where the Bush team was openly reluctant to disavow ‘its complicity’ in the enforcement and legitimization of neo-monarchy. The point is that October 2003, the end of the ‘scandalous’ presidential election was, in fact, the birth of the first post-Soviet neo-monarchy. Since then ‘to get an official invitation from President Bush’ has been a kind of ‘idee fixe’ for President Aliyev. Every year his team played the ‘supposed US visit’ game, but every time their wish to pass the desirable for reality came to grief: for over two years the Azeri president failed to find the key to the gate of the White House,” says Real Azerbaijan.

“The key question we should find an answer to is: why has Washington ignored the reality of Aliyev’s presidency for so long and why does it want to meet with him now, after one more electoral disgrace? Probably, after the fiasco of the Paris peacemaking initiative, Bush’s experts have got ambitious to show their imperial will for actually resolving the Armenian-Azeri conflict. Lately the US experts have kept saying that the problem can and even must be solved this year. Quite naturally. With the launch of the strategic Baku-Ceyhan and Baku-Erzerum pipelines in the offing, the US is hurrying to bring the Karabakh conflict under its control and to enforce its peaceful resolution for reducing the risks of the global energy projects. The White House’s ‘Karabakh initiative’ is also due to the US’ ‘anti-Tehran plans’: before its possible war with Iran, the Bush administration wants to settle or freeze all the other conflicts along the Iranian border so as to minimize other threats and to avoid unnecessary surprises. The media are already rumoring about some ‘special peacemaking project,’ a plan by the Americans to force the conflicting parties into mutual concessions. And so, they interpret Aliyev’s forthcoming visit to the US as an indirect proof of that. The ‘Iranian version’ is also convincing. This version says that Bush wants to force his satellite into implicit obedience in his blitzkrieg. Moreover, the very fact that Aliyev was invited to Washington (that he is no longer an ‘unwanted guest’) is interpreted by many as a proof that Baku has accepted Washington’s terms on Iran (and possibly on Karabakh too).”

"Some Azeri analysts say that the invitation is due to the US’ wish to stop Azerbaijan’s re-Sovetization and the constantly growing Russian influence on the country. The US experts may well be worried lest Azerbaijan might follow Uzbekistan’s example of geo-political transformation and may just want to show the whole world that our country is still the US’ strategic partner and that this partnership cannot be replaced by the neo-Soviet friendship between Putin and Aliyev. The “offended” regime is getting increasingly neo-Soviet, reactionary and corrupt and sometimes even shows some dangerous “geo-political flirt” with Moscow and Tehran. So, the White House may have revised its strategy on Aliyev: it may have decided to temper justice with mercy and to keep the Azeri neo-monarchy on as short a leash as possible so as to provide against any possible “geo-political betrayal…” (Real Azerbaijan)

Azerbaijan-Armenia. Karabakh problem

“The Azeri authorities will give the green-light to the mission of the European Parliament’s 10-experts, sent to Armenia to investigate the alleged destruction of an Armenian cemetery in Naxcivan, only if a two-sided investigation is held,” says the head of the public and political department of the Azeri president staff Ali Gasanov. He says that the proposal to send a mission to Naxcivan was made by a British MP: “Azerbaijan is open for all. We want the whole world to know what atrocities Armenians committed in Azerbaijan and what Azeris did in Armenia. But this must be done on a mutual basis. Why are the European Parliament experts checking the places of alleged destruction of Armenian monuments but are closing their eyes on the destruction of our cultural pearls in Shusha and elsewhere? We suggest setting up an EP fact-finding mission for examining the occupied and not occupied territories of Azerbaijan and the territory of Armenia. But we will object if they hold such an investigation only in Naxcivan.” (Echo)

“We can’t decide for your two countries. These will be very difficult decisions to make, as no peace agreement can be 100% good for both sides. But I can say that there is a solution that can justify the hopes of both sides by more than 50% and even by 80%. But the final decision is up to your presidents and governments,” the French co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group Bernard Fassier says at a news conference in Baku on April 11. On behalf of the MG, he regrets that the meeting in France has given no results. “2005 was very hard, we held many meetings and talks to resolve the Karabakh conflict. As a result, we determined the key principles of the peace agreement. The presidents were supposed to agree on the remaining principles. But unfortunately they didn’t.” (Zerkalo)

During the PACE spring session the chairman of the PACE ad hoc committee on Nagorno Karabakh conflict, Lord Russell-Johnston expressed his concern over the possibility of a new war in the Karabakh conflict zone. He noted that the formation of the PACE committee on Karabakh does not mean that PACE is going to become a full mediator in the peace process. He said that the OSCE MG has professionally mediated in the process for already 10 years and the CE can hardly replace it therein. “Our task is to provide the OSCE MG co-chairs with any necessary assistance,” Johnston said. (Azeri Press)

The Halotrust organization, registered in the US and the UK, is engaged in illegal activities in the occupied Azeri lands under the guise of mine clearance, says the first secretary of the Embassy of Azerbaijan in Belgium Fuad Gumbatov. He says that by its statements and official activities The Halotrust questions the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan: “We know for sure that The Halotrust has been founded by retired officers and that representatives of that organization hold military trainings with Armenians in Karabakh.” Gumbatov urges “all patriots of Azerbaijan” to come out against the activities of that organization. (Azeri Press)

Azerbaijan and Armenia have undertaken similar commitments to resolve the Karabakh conflict by peace, CE Secretary General Terry Davis says in an interview to Azeri Press. He says that if Azerbaijan tries to solve the problem by war, it will grossly violate the commitments it undertook when joining the CE. Davis is sure that Azerbaijan will honor its commitments. Otherwise, it will face big difficulties.