ROMANO PRODI: “OIL MAY MAKE YOU RICH BUT MAY ALSO DESTROY”

Azg/am
25 Sept 04

During Romano Prodi’s, president of the European Commission, visit in
Baku Ilham Aliyev, president of Azerbaijan, threatened the latter
saying: “We need your support only in Nagorno Karabakh conflict
settlement process, in other issues we can do without you. We are
going to produce 1.5 milliard tones ofoil”, French Le Figaro informs.

Prodi replied, “The oil may make you reach but may also destroy”. In
its September 23 issue Le Figaro published an article titled
“Caucasus: Europe Reaches out to New Neighbors” where it touched upon
European Commission president’s September 16-19 visit to South
Caucasus, Mediamax informs.

“Europeans are afraid that Baku will use the oil profit to get armed
and begin a new war against Armenia. That will end up in disaster for
the region in the present situation when the Baku-Jeyhan oil pipeline
construction, passing Russia by, is coming to an end”, Le Figaro
writes.

The newspaper also touches upon Armenian-Turkish relations and
Turkey’s membership in the EU in this context. “The Armenian-Turkish
confrontation may be included in the report on Turkey as one of the
points”, it writes.

Prodi’s statement made in Armenia during the press conference that
“the closed Armenian-Turkish border makes me worry. I will do
everything to change that” was also touched by Le Figaro.

By Tatoul Hakobian