Azerbaijani president: Armenia too dependent on Russia in territory dispute talks
by AIDA SULTANOVA; Associated Press Writer
Associated Press Worldstream
December 17, 2004 Friday
BAKU, Azerbaijan — Russia is taking too active a role in the
negotiations over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh enclave, whose
unresolved status remains a source of tension for Azerbaijan and
Armenia, Azerbaijan’s president said Friday.
Ilham Aliev was reacting to comments by Russian parliament speaker
Boris Gryzlov, who said that Armenia was Russia’s outpost in the
Caucasus region. Gryzlov made the statement Wednesday at a meeting
between Armenian legislators and their Russian counterparts.
“We are confused: We have always considered Armenia a state, but now
it turns out that it is an outpost,” Aliev told journalists Friday.
“So whom should we negotiate with now – the outpost or the master of
the outpost?” he said.
Azerbaijan and Armenia have been locked in a bitter dispute over
Nagorno-Karabakh, an ethnic Armenian enclave in Azerbaijan’s
territory. Ethnic Armenian forces drove Azerbaijani troops out of
Nagorno-Karabakh in the 1990s. Since a 1994 cease-fire, the sides
have been separated by a demilitarized buffer zone, but occasional
shooting breaks out and each side accuses the other of mounting
small incursions.
“I believe that if these negotiations are conducted in a constructive
way, and the Armenian side does not go back on earlier agreed-upon
positions … we can come to certain agreements,” Aliev said.
Baku wants Armenian forces to withdraw from Nagorno-Karabakh before
a peace treaty can be signed.
Aliev also said Friday that Azerbaijan is ready to fully reopen its
railway connection with neighboring Georgia only after it receives
guarantees that the cargo is not redirected to Armenia.
Azerbaijan closed its railway link with Georgia for five days in
November, barring about 1,500 train cars carrying oil and other
cargo, on the grounds that some of the cargo had ended up in Armenia.
Baku then reopened the connection partially – allowing in some trains,
mostly those carrying oil – after Azerbaijan and Georgia agreed that
no cargo would be redirected to Armenia.
But Aliev said Friday that “smuggling and falsifications” were still
taking place.
“If it persists, the border will remain closed,” Aliev said. “We
understand that it causes harm to us and to a certain extent to
Georgia, but we have no other choice.”