Existence of Russia’s radar station in Azerbaijan in question

Nezavisimaya Gazeta, Moscow
29 Nov 04

The Russian-leased Qabala radar station in Azerbaijan may close down,
if the US plans against Iran come true, Russia’s Nezavisimaya Gazeta
has suggested. Intentions by Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Ecology and
Natural Resources to monitor the station’s impact on the environment
and an inquiry by the MP from the ruling party on whether ethnic
Armenian officers serve at the station “could hardly happen without
the nod from the top”, paper said. It quoted “informed sources” as
saying that Azerbaijan’s Defence Ministry had initiated the campaign
for the closure of the radar station. However, this scenario is
unlikely in the near future as Russia “has a few secret levers of
influence on Azerbaijan’s leadership”. The following is a text of
report by Rauf Mirqadirov in Russian newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta on
29 November headlined ” The fate of the last Russian military base in
Azerbaijan in question”; subheadings have been inserted editorially:

MPs and ecologists demand closure of radar station

The Azerbaijani parliament demands that the Qabala radar station [in
northern Azerbaijan] be closed down.

The rumours being persistently spread in Azerbaijan, that the
appearance on Azerbaijani territory of US military bases is in the
offing, have made the topic of the withdrawal of Russian installations
from the territory of Azerbaijan timely. The threat applies to the
only Russian military installation remaining in the country, the
Qabala radar station. The issue of modifying the lease terms for this
station has already been raised more than once in Azerbaijan’s
parliament.

The country’s Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources has announced
its intention to monitor the impact of the station’s electromagnetic
emissions on nature and human health. Right after that, the press
service of the Russian Space Troops issued a statement that the radar
station’s impact on the environment did not exceed the established
standards. But the reports of various local ecological organizations
assert the exact opposite. Let us note that, in fact, all these
organizations exist on the grants by Western foundations, above all US
ones.

On the basis of the research conducted, the ecologists claim that the
electromagnetic emissions from the Qabala radar station have an
adverse effect both on the environment and human health. In an
interview with a Nezavisimaya Gazeta correspondent, the director of
the Ecological Prognosis Centre, Telman Zeynalov, has said that “even
such representatives of wildlife as bees and snails, which are
resistant to electromagnetic emissions, have died out in this
region”. The research also showed that a percentage of female
barrenness and male impotence has risen in this region. Moreover, as
the ecologists claim, the settlement where the Russian soldiers live
is not exposed to the radiation, since it is [already] situated in a
so-called “dead zone.”

MPs, largely from the ruling party, are involved in the campaign to
get rid of the radar station as well. That could hardly happen without
the nod from the top. MP Cahangir Huseynov has inquired the minister
of defence about whether ethnic Armenian officers are actually serving
at the Qabala radar station. In the deputy’s opinion, that is
unacceptable, even if these officers are citizens of Russia. His
statement immediately received the support of both his parliamentary
colleagues and a significant part of society.

Defence Ministry reportedly initiated the campaign for closure

We have learned from informed sources that the leadership of the
Azerbaijani Ministry of Defence has initiated a new campaign for the
closure of the Qabala radar station. Formally, the whole problem is
that the decision of leasing the Qabala radar station to Russia was
supposedly made without taking into account the opinion of the
ministry which, as a source in the Azerbaijani Ministry of Defence
claims, was against this agreement. But the fact that the Azerbaijani
Ministry of Defence is behind this campaign suggests a lot in
itself. After all, Azerbaijani Defence Minister Safar Abiyev has long
been known as an official who always does everything looking at the
USA.

Of course, supposedly under pressure from internal and, most
importantly, several external factors official Baku may start talks
with Russia on the closure of the military installation. “The
electronic part of the station can be dismantled and taken away. But
it is not this already obsolete equipment that is of most value, but
the building itself as an engineering facility that provides the
electromagnetic emissions. It cannot be dismantled. It can be blown
up, that is destroyed, as was done to a similar station in Latvia,”
believes Casur Mammadov, independent military expert.

The point is not even that Russia did not completely pay off the debts
for the use and energy supply to the Qabala radar station before
signing the 10-year lease agreement that came into effect in
2002. Russia pays only 7m dollars a year to lease the station. At the
same time, Moscow obligated itself to pay off the debt of 30m dollars
for the energy supply to the station between 1992 and 2002, which it
is not yet doing.

Azerbaijan has the necessary legal grounds to start the talks on the
closure of the Qabala radar station. Let us begin with the idea that
nearly a year ago, Azerbaijan adopted a law on national security that
unequivocally prohibits the deployment of foreign military bases on
the country’s territory.

Radar station is formally information analysis centre

Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov has told Nezavisimaya
Gazeta that the Qabala radar station is operating on the basis of the
leasing contract concluded between the two states, and it would be
wrong to consider it a military base. According to an interpretation
of the parties, the Qabala radar station is an information analysis
centre leased by Russia on the basis of the intergovernment
agreements, he said.

At any moment, the Azerbaijani side may classify the Qabala radar
station as a foreign military base and begin negotiations to close it
down.

US-Russian agreements on closing down former Soviet radar stations not
fulfilled in Qabala

The point is that in the last three decades, the Soviet Union and the
USA, and then Russia and the USA have signed a series of agreements on
strategic weapons (SALT 1 and SALT 2 treaties), strategic offensive
weapons (START 1 and START 2 treaties) and missile defence systems
(ABM Treaty). “These agreements envisioned not only curtailing
missiles with nuclear warheads, but also closing down some of the
early warning radar stations, including the Qabala radar station,
along with the Latvian one. After the radar station in Latvia was
blown up, the parties `forgot’ about Qabala, apparently `by mutual
agreement’. In any case, the provision of the ABM agreement on closing
down the Qabala radar station was not fulfilled, although the parties
did not officially abandon it. That is to say, today the USA formally
has the full right to demand that Russia fulfil this point,” expert
Mammadov claims.

So formally the Azerbaijani side has sufficient grounds to initiate
the start of the negotiations on the closure of the Qabala radar
station. But why start talking about this right now?

US and Russian military’s co-existence in Azerbaijan unlikely

A political analyst, Matin Rasadoglu, believes, that actually it is
unlikely that US servicemen, regardless of under what pretext they are
to be deployed in Azerbaijan, can “be neighbours” to the Russian
servicemen. Reports recently appeared in the Western press that
Washington had begun consultations with official Baku on the
possibility of using the territory of Azerbaijan for delivering
strikes against Iran. If we take into account that Moscow will hardly
want to support this undertaking by Washington, the fate of the Qabala
radar station is obvious: the USA will not allow a “hostile” radar
station to operate in its rear.

The expert believes that developments of this kind are more than
realistic: “Suffice it to recall that right after the appearance of
the abovementioned reports on delivering strikes against Iran using
Azerbaijani territory, Iran’s Minister of Foreign Affairs [Kamal]
Kharrazi announced Tehran’s consent to all the IAEA [International
Atomic Energy Agency] conditions to suspend the programme to enrich
uranium. In the last month, Iranian President [Mohammad] Khatami has
called [Azerbaijani President] Ilham Aliyev twice. Just before that,
Tehran at last made a decision on the opening Azerbaijan’s consulate
in Tabriz [northwestern Iran predominantly populated by ethnic
Azeris], although this question had not been resolved for 10 years. In
that way Iran, on one hand, is bowing to official Baku, and, on the
other, is trying to sound out the intentions of Azerbaijan’s
leadership”.

At the same time, the closure of the radar station will not happen
very soon, since Ilham Aliyev “very much `looks towards’ Russia.” In
the opinion of experts, [Russian President Vladimir] Putin has a few
secret levers of influence on Azerbaijan’s leadership.