Caucasian leaders with Armenian background judged – paper

Iravunk web site, Yerevan
15 Jun 04

The scandal in the Georgian parliament last week connected with the
[ethnic] origin of Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania’s mother could be
carried over into the Azerbaijani Milli Majlis.

The fact that the Zugdidi MP Pipiya distrusts the head of the Georgian
government, because of his Armenian mother, could similarly be
applied to Azerbaijani politicians who might get the nationalistic
bug. Especially as they have their “own Zhvania”: Prime Minister
Artur Rasizade, whose mother is also Armenian.

Despite his ethnic “deficiency”, he has been holding the second post
in order of importance in the hierarchy, for the past eight years.

It is not accidental: Artur Tair ogli belongs to the ruling
Naxcivan-Aliyev clan, and is a nephew of the former deputy chairman
of council of ministers of the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic,
Samil Rasizade.

During Soviet times the present prime minister headed a department
of the Central Committee of the Azerbaijani Communist Party and was
deputy chairman of the state planning committee of the republic. An
experienced leader, he, according to the witnesses, is successfully
combining his professional competency with an ability to perform a
balancing act in the corridors of power.

When it was necessary to vacate the chair of head of the government
for Ilham Aliyev, Rasizade did it without complaint. His sensible
obsequiousness was appreciated accordingly: once Aliyev-junior became
president he instructed his countryman [Artur Rasizade] to form the
cabinet of ministers for a third time. To deprive Artur Tair ogli of
this highest post is beyond the Azerbaijani MP Armenophob’s power.

But neither Rasizade nor his colleague Zhvania are immune to offensive
attacks in the parliament. Nevertheless crude xenophobia does not
change anything: today many Caucasus leaders have Armenian mothers:
apart from the aforementioned two prime ministers, there is also,
speaker of the Georgian parliament Nino Burjanadze, not to speak
of the leaders of Armenia and the Nagornyy Karabakh Republic [NKR],
not only their mothers are the Armenians. Only Mikheil Saakashvili
[Georgian president] does not acknowledge the ethnic background which
MP Pipiya dislikes.