Togrul Sofiyev: Aliyev had to turn Putin down

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Three days before Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov’s visit to Baku scheduled for December 4, Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev instructed the government to decide within a week or two on cutting down or cutting off oil transportation via the Baku-Novorossiysk oil pipeline. In Azerbaijan, the gesture is connected, as many believe, to the twofold increase of gas tariff by Gazprom to Azerbaijan and threefold reduction of the amount of supplied gas. Independent expert Torgul Sofiyev commented on the situation asked by a REGNUM correspondent.

“Possible curtailment or suspension of oil transportation via the Baku-Novorossiysk oil pipeline is only a consequence. As for the reasons, Gazprom’s (to be more precise, Russian government’s) intention is evident to reduce the amount of gas supply to Azerbaijan threefold and raise the tariff twice,” the expert said adding that “the matter concerns not a hypothetical punishment for Azerbaijan for unwillingness to participate in the energy attack on Georgia but the latter as it is.” “There is a nonsense. How can Russia stand condemnation of its each step, counteraction in everything and, literally, finance such subject?” Sofiyev asked.

At the same time he reminded that for the whole last winter Baku received gas from Moscow at a low price and re-sold it to Tbilisi and it will continue doing it this winter. As Sofiyev thinks, despite Putin’s wish sounded in Minsk to see Aliyev on his side of the barricade, Azerbaijan’s leader was unable to give a positive answer to him and had to ignore pluses connected with it. The thing is, the minuses overweigh, as strategic oil and gas pipelines come across the Georgian territory, on sustainable functioning of which Azerbaijan’s wealthy future depends. Besides, uneasy situation of more than 400,000 Azerbaijanis living in Georgia should be taken into account, Sofiyev stresses. He is sure that Aliyev cited those arguments to Putin in Minsk, after which “each of the parties used their tactical means leaving unchanged strategy of their relations.”