Azerbaijani minister says elections will be free despite rigging charges
By DAVID KOOP
.c The Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) – Azerbaijan’s foreign minister said Thursday that his
nation has made major steps toward holding free elections, despite
opposition charges the Nov. 6 vote will be rigged and rising
anti-government protests in this former Soviet republic.
Elmar Mammadyarov also played down prospects that the oil-rich Caspian
nation could see a popular uprising similar to those that have taken
place in the former Soviet republics of Ukraine, Georgia and
Kyrgyzstan.
“The government, and president himself, are committed to conducting
free and fair elections,” Mammadyarov told The Associated Press in
New York, where he was attending a U.N. summit.
“We have taken strong steps to meet international standards. This
vote will be much fairer than what we have done before,” he said.
The opposition had demanded that Azerbaijani election commission
members be fired in the wake of the fraudulent October 2003
presidential vote and municipal elections the following year, but the
government has refused to budge.
On Saturday, more than 2,000 orange-clad opposition members rallied in
the Azerbaijani capital, Baku, demanding that President Ilhan Aliev
resign and that authorities ensure that parliamentary elections in
November are free. Protests have become almost weekly affairs.
Azerbaijan formally launched the election campaign Wednesday after
authorities registered more than 2,000 candidates running for 125
parliament seats in the vote.
But an uprising that topples the government is considered unlikely,
The United States considers the mostly Muslim country of 8.3 million,
which has troops in Iraq, an important ally. And the West, which at
least tacitly supported the uprisings that ousted leaders in Georgia,
Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan, has sunk large investments into energy
projects here.
Mammadyarov said the situation was different in Azerbaijan, with his
country in the process of a “political maturation process” and
called for protests to be peaceful.
“Protesters shouldn’t beat police and police shouldn’t beat
protesters,” he said
He said the Islamic militancy shaking the region isn’t a threat to the
vote. “So far we can handle it,” he said.
The foreign minister also said Azerbaijan was willing to contribute to
the world’s oil security and stabilize gasoline prices with its
reserves.
In May, the presidents of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey opened the
$3.2 billion (euro2.62 billion) Baku-Ceyhan pipeline, sending the
first flow of Caspian Sea oil that is seen as key to reducing the
West’s reliance on Middle East oil.
The Caspian is thought to contain the world’s third-largest oil and
gas reserves, and Azerbaijan could be supplying up to 1.6 million
barrels a day by 2009-2010, he said.
With respect to Azerbaijan’s bitter dispute with Armenia over the
disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, Mammadyarov said a solution was
not near.
“I wish I could tell you that we are close to the breakthrough, but
in reality there are problems,” he said.
He said a recent meeting between the nations’ leaders created a
framework for negotiation. But he said the dispute needs leaders “who
think like statesman not politicians pursing national interests.”
Tension between Armenia and Azerbaijan remains high more than a decade
after a 1994 cease-fire ended a six-year war that left
Nagorno-Karabakh, a mainly ethnic Armenian enclave in Azerbaijan, in
Armenian hands.
The 1988-1994 war killed some 30,000 people and drove 1 million others
from their homes. The unresolved conflict damages both nations’
economies and raises the threat of renewed war.
09/15/05 20:52 EDT
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress