Azeri foreign minister says setting up of NATO bases may take time
Ekho, Baku
20 Aug 04
Judging by the nature of Russian media reports, Moscow is most of all
concerned about Azerbaijan’s military development. The first question
journalists asked Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov at a
final news conference in Moscow was about Azerbaijan’s prospects for
entering NATO.
“I am always asked whether Azerbaijan wants to become a member of
NATO. This question had better be addressed to NATO members,”
Mammadyarov said.
Asked about the possibility of setting up NATO bases in Azerbaijan,
Mammadyarov said: “It is naive to think that military bases can be set
up overnight.” The minister also spoke about how difficult it was to
agree the issue of establishing military bases, namely, between
parliaments.
Touching on military and technical cooperation with Russia, he said
that the issue had been discussed at his meeting with Russian Foreign
Minister Sergey Lavrov. Mammadyarov mentioned that Azerbaijan and
Russia were already maintaining military and technical cooperation and
Azerbaijan had leased its Qabala radar station to Russia. Also, there
is an exchange programme between the defence ministries of the two
countries.
Speaking about the role of Russia in the region, the minister said
that Moscow should step up its role in resolving the Karabakh
conflict. “We are expecting the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairmen to say
their word in resolving the conflict,” the minister said. The minister
pointed to the inviolability of the territorial integrity principle.
Mammadyarov also spoke about the Caspian legal status and said that
Azerbaijan was counting on the speediest solution of the issue. “A
solution to this issue is not too far off,” he said. According to him,
the problem of dividing the Caspian should not be “viewed as a serious
one”. “The recent visit by the Iranian president to Azerbaijan and my
visit to Tehran have laid the foundations for progress,” the
Azerbaijani foreign minister said.
[Passage omitted: reported details]
“Azerbaijan stands for further cooperation with Russia in the energy
sector,” he said. Speaking about economic cooperation between the two
countries, he said “cooperation in the energy sector is part of
it”. “[Russia’s] LUKoil is actively working in Azerbaijan but there
are opportunities for other companies as well,” Mammadyarov said.
He also said that Azerbaijan was implementing a number of projects
towards establishing a transport corridor from Russia through
Azerbaijan and Iran to the Persian Gulf. Namely, both Russia and Iran
support the construction of the North-South railway corridor.
“Russia supports the idea of accessing the Persian Gulf through
Azerbaijan and Iran,” the minister said. He mentioned that Azerbaijan
had completed the construction of the railway to Astara [town on
Azerbaijan-Iran border], while Iran was building a railway line to the
town with the same name on its own territory. “When a railway bridge
between these two towns is built, the corridor will start working. An
agreement on the construction of the bridge has already been reached,”
he said.
Also, Azerbaijan is in talks with Greece on possible supplies of
natural gas there. “Agreements have been signed with Georgia and
Turkey and talks with Greece are under way,” he said when answering a
question about ways of exporting Azerbaijani gas. “I think more
customers will be found in Europe after Greece,” he added.
According to him, oil is now of higher priority than gas. “We hope
that first tankers with our oil will leave the port of Ceyhan [in
Turkey] in the summer of 2005,” he said and added that about 1m
barrels of oil are to be pumped through the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan
pipeline every day.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress