AZG Armenian Daily #107, 11/06/2005

Neighbors

‘AZERI AUTHORITIES TREAT OPPOSITION QUITE HUMANLY’

Novruz Mamedov, head of External Relation’s Department at Azeri President’s
Office, stated that Ilham Aliyev treats the opposition quite humanly. He
reminded in the interview to that the law “On
political parties” envisages restriction of a political party’s activities,
if they violate the points of the document.

“Recently, various U.S. circles, including the official ones, show concern
over the situation in Azerbaijan. In the October of 2003, Ilham Aliyev
smashed the opposition psychologically and physically, but the American were
not concerned back then. What do you think why American remembered that
Azerbaijan is no democratic country?”, daily Azg asked Mamedov. “On May 21,
when the parties, included in the pre-electoral opposition federation tried
to hold illegal rally in the center of Baku, they began discussing this
issue not only in the U.S. but also in Azerbaijan. By the way, the deputies,
members of the ruling party, and many others severely criticized the actions
of the opposition. Our country step by step comes forward, joining the
leading European states. The opposition aims to increase tension and
resistance in the country,” Mamedov said in response.

Mamedov stated that on May 25, 2005, when “the first” oil flew through
Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, Azerbaijan became “a political heavy
weight fighter” whose opinion is important. Azerbaijan is getting integrated
into the circle of the leading states of the world very successfully.” As
for the calls of the high-ranking Azeri officials to settle the Nagorno
Karabakh conflict by war, Mamedov said that Azerbaijan spares no efforts to
avert military actions. “As for the statements of the officials, they
correspond the will of the Azeri people that believe that the territorial
integrity of our state is the main priority,” he said.

“Does official Baku consider that current NKR within the borders of the
former NKAR is a territory occupied from Azerbaijan?”, Azg asked Mamedov.
“According to the international law, the UN formulae, all the CIS countries
that were formed after the collapse of the Soviet Union should be recognized
within the borders they were in as state units in the structure of the
Soviet Union. Thus, both Valley Karabakh and Nagorno Karabakh are the lands
of Azerbaijan and it’s out of question, even in respect of the state’s
territorial integrity,” Mamedov said.

In 2003 Ilham Aliyev called for the Azeri NGOs to stop cooperating with
Armenians. Mamedov said that he agrees with the decision of his president,
as some of our NGO members violate the formats of communicating with the
Armenians.” We need to settle Nagorno Karabakh conflict first, return the
territories and only after that we can unfold full communication,” Mamedov
said.

Mamedov said that Russian-Azeri relations were greatly improved when Putin
came to power. He added that goods turnover between these two countries
amounted to $1 million in 2004.

By Tatoul Hakobian