Time is serving Azerbaijan: interview with Mubariz Ahmedoglu

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A REGNUM correspondent in Baku has had an interview with the head of the Center for Political Innovations and Technologies Mubariz Ahmedoglu.

REGNUM: The Azeri and Armenian FMs have said they will meet shortly in the framework of the Karabakh peace process. Will they discuss new or old proposals?

They will hardly discuss new ideas. Let’s not forget that this is their first meeting after the well-known statement by the OSCE MG co-chairs. And, as you may know, ideas are, first, suggested by the co-chairs and, only then, discussed by the Azeri and Armenian FMs and presidents. On the other hand, the meeting of Elmar Mammadyarov and Vardan Oskanyan may give a new impulse to the negotiating process, and the co-chairs may turn this impulse into new proposals.

REGNUM: Mass media report people in Azerbaijan and Armenia to be sure that the negotiating process has made no headway for many years already. Who is the time serving: Azerbaijan or Armenia.

I think it is serving Azerbaijan. We have fewer problems. Azerbaijan is getting stronger and is developing at record speed. The successful implementation of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, the late 2006 launch of the Baku-Tbilisi-Eruzrum gas pipeline, the planned construction of Kars-Akhlkalaki-Tbilisi-Baku railroad – all these projects leave Armenia outside energy and transport routes.

Besides, in 2007 Armenia will elect parliament, a few months later the self-proclaimed Nagorno Karabakh Republic and in February-March 2008 Armenia will elect presidents. So, Armenia is entering a phase that will hardly be good for it. As you know, during elections a state gets weaker. This is especially true for small countries like Armenia.

In one word, both conceptually and tactically, the time is serving Azerbaijan. You may say that our country, too, will have a presidential election in 2008, but internal stability, competent foreign policy, growing popular incomes and weakening opposition exclude any rebellious factors.

REGNUM: Is everything that simple? Let’s remember that we have a whole grown up generation who has never seen Shusha, Lachin, Kalbajar, other occupied Azeri towns or who have seen them only in early childhood… Will those young people – most of them have already been resettled from camps to comfortable townships – want to return to destroyed houses, to their old homes?

We can also say that there is a whole generation of young people in Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia who know nothing about Azerbaijan. Everything depends not so much on these factors as they are as on who and how will use them. For the beginning, I would like to note that the Azeri Government will create all conditions for the return of all refugees and displaced persons to Nagorno-Karabakh and other occupied territories. Let’s not forget that old people have told children and youths about their homelands: you can’t remove this from their memory. And, finally, when the time of return comes, we will need a month, at longest, to carry out propaganda. This will be quite a large-scale propaganda as most of mass media are in the hands of the state. Besides, you will hardly find any non-patriot among the private TV or radio channels or newspapers.