Azeri paper chides president for “second Cyprus disgrace”

Azadliq, Baku
31 Jul 05

Text of unattributed report by Azerbaijani newspaper Azadliq on 31
July headlined “The second Cyprus disgrace” and subheaded “The Ilham
Aliyev administration deals another blow to Azerbaijan’s reputation”.
Subheadings and quotation marks as published.

The [President] Ilham Aliyev’s administration has owned up to another
diplomatic disgrace. The administration declared several days ago
to be at the forefront of a campaign to get the Turkish Republic of
Northern Cyprus [TRNC] out of isolation, and in an effort to promote
its cause, sent the first scheduled flight from Baku to the TRNC.

And then, the day before yesterday [on 29 July], it issued a denial
[of this policy]. The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry stated that our
ambassador to Greece, Mirhamza Afandiyev, visited the Greek Foreign
Ministry on the instructions from Baku where he said that Azerbaijan
regards Greece as its reliable political and economic partner. The
statement also says that the opening of regular flights from Baku
to Northern Cyprus “is not a government policy, but a commercial
initiative of a private company”.

This was the second time that the Aliyev administration got plunged
into uncertainty over the TRNC. For the second time, the government
issues lofty statements about relations with Northern Cyprus and then
denies them later on. Of course, this is mainly because of Aliyev’s
inexperience in international politics. The unsuccessful graduate from
“the faculty of international relations” believes it is possible to
make an irresponsible statement to please the opposite side and then
deny that statement to smooth out someone else’s displeasure.

The reputation and the image of the country can be disregarded. It is
with this idea that Ilham Aliyev and his numskull administration gave
solid promises on relations with Northern Cyprus to please Turkey for
a second time and reneged on those promises because of inability to
keep them.

The same disgrace happened before – Mistake made a year and half
ago repeated

Ilham Aliyev made his first statement, which was also denied later,
about a year and half ago. In order to win the sympathy of the
Turkish government and the public, Aliyev declared in Ankara that
Azerbaijan might recognize the independence of Northern Cyprus.
Seeing that he was stirring up an international scandal following an
irresponsibility on such a scale, Aliyev then told the Parliamentary
Assembly of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg that he had never made
such a statement. Moreover, in a joint news conference with the Greek
president in Baku he answered a question on this subject so vaguely,
that it felt as if he was wriggling out of an awkward situation. The
Aliyev administration thought no more about relations with Northern
Cyprus for 18 months.

Aliyev’s “sagacious” team remembered Northern Cyprus again as soon
as it saw that Ankara would play a serious role in the political
processes in the run-up to the election in Azerbaijan and when the
Turkish government started to demand a democratic election from Baku.
The Aliyev administration drew up a unique plan for the visit of
Turkish Prime Minister [Recep Tayyip] Erdogan, who came to Baku to talk
about democratic election. The Azerbaijani leadership made another
populist statement pledging direct relations with the TRNC in order
to mitigate the discussions on this subject. Standing next to Erdogan,
Aliyev declared that Azerbaijan will champion the move to get Northern
Cyprus out of isolation, that regular flights will be opened from Baku
to the TRNC, and that “other required measures” would be taken as well.

However, attempts by the Aliyev administration to win Ankara’s sympathy
by showing good relations with Northern Cyprus did not stop the Turkish
prime minister from advising Baku to hold a democratic election.

We can say it without reservations that following the denial
of the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry, the latest attempt of the
Aliyev administration has also failed. Aliyev’s reneging on the
promise regarding TRNC for a second time resulted in his reputation
deteriorating in the eyes of the governments and the public of Turkey
and Northern Cyprus.