“WHAT WILL PUTIN THINK OF US NOW?”: AZERI PRESS DIGEST

Regnum, Russia
March 19 2006

“Democracy export is not working. This should be an evolutionary
process,” Azeri President Ilham Aliyev said at a forum by the Japan
Institute of International Affairs. “If this is our country, we should
decide ourselves how to live in and develop it,” Aliyev said.

He promised that the Azeri authorities will not stay inactive if
anybody tries to influence the internal processes in Azerbaijan.

(Trend)

“The statements by the Azeri leaders that they are ready to start
military actions are blackmail. Even more, these aggressive statements
are meant to cheat the Azeris rather than the Armenians,” well-known
Azeri political expert Zardusht Alizade says to Zerkalo.

“Our army is just a facility like some celebration house, restaurant or
supermarket,” says Alizade. He does not see any difference in structure
between the Armenian and Azeri armies. “The Armenian army is almost the
same, with the same chaos and bullying. True, in Armenia things are a
bit better. But this is just because both army commands are bound to
Russia, and now Russia is more benevolent to Armenia,” says Alizade. He
does not rule out the possibility of a new war by Azerbaijan but
says that this will require skillful command, well-trained personnel
and people believing that “they will be led by experienced and loyal
commanders.” “We have none of the components yet,” says Alizade. As
regards the role of the international community in the Karabakh peace
process, Alizade says that the key actors – Russia and the West –
are acting immorally just to get what they want. But they will hardly
be able to stop the war. “Azerbaijan is an independent state. The
president may order his army to start an offensive to probably see
them moving back soon afterwards. But whatever, one thing is clear:
with its present system and present leader Azerbaijan is not attractive
to the world community,” says Alizade. (Zerkalo)

Mar 8 the US Department of State issued a 2006 Investment Climate
Statement on Azerbaijan, which says that the Armenian-Azeri Nagorno
Karabakh conflict has produced a 800,000-strong army of refugees and
displaced persons, who are a huge deterrent for the country’s economic
development. Nevertheless, due to its active regional development
and poverty reduction policies, Azerbaijan showed high macro-economic
figures in 2005, and if they are continued, will have a 30% GDP growth
in 2006. This year’s launch of BTC may prove generally positive for
the country’s economy. The Azeri authorities give high priority to
direct foreign investments and welcome them in their country.

The law on foreign investment protection specifies where foreigners can
and cannot invest their money. National security- and defense-related
sectors are close to foreign investing. At the same time, the statement
notes that except for oil production sharing, Azerbaijan does not use
any other means to stimulate foreign investing. Corruption remains a
key obstacle for the economy and a key repellent for foreign investors,
especially in non-energy sectors. The anti-corruption acts and decrees
are not used effectively, and the new law enacted in Jan 2005 has
not given tangible results so far. (New Time)

The US Department of State has issued its human rights report on
Azerbaijan 2005, which gives the following facts of human rights
violation in Azerbaijan: restricted ability of people to change
their government peacefully; torture in jail; politically motivated
detentions and arrests; harsh and life threatening prison conditions;
police impunity; lengthy pretrial detention; corruption in courts;
infringed privacy; media pressure; excessive violence against peaceful
demonstrators; social discrimination of women; trafficking in persons;
restricted labor rights. The report says that the Azeri authorities
“did not exercise any control over developments in the territories
occupied by the Armenian forces and little veritable information was
available on the human rights situation there.”

The report also mentions the exposure and arrest of the group of
former high-ranking MIA official Haji Mamedov and the murder of
journalist Elmar Guseynov. The MIA employees who took part in the 2003
post-electoral beatings of demonstrators remained unpunished; prison
conditions remained life threatening, with 107 dead as a result. The
report also mentions the arrested former high-ranking officials:
Akif Muradverdiyev, Ali Insanov, Farhad Aliyev, Fikret Yusifov,
Fikret Sadygov, Rafiq Aliyev and Academician Eldar Salayev.

Concerning the freedom of speech and press, the report says that there
were many pro-government and opposition media, but printed media were
freer than electronic ones, who were mostly pro-governmental. There
were more than 40 independent newspaper and magazines, 23 TV
and 12 radio channels, 10 governmental and 80 municipal and rural
newspapers. Unlike pro-governmental press, independent and opposition
newspapers only sporadically were available in the regions outside
Baku due to limited distribution.

(Zerkalo)

“The territorial integrity of Azerbaijan is not the subject of the
Karabakh peace talks,” Azeri President Ilham Aliyev said in his speech
at the Japan Institute of International Affairs in Tokyo Mar 9. The
subject is “how to liberate the occupied territories, to repatriate
victims to ethnic cleansing and aggression, to provide Nagorno Karabakh
with high autonomy status within Azerbaijan.” “All this must be in
line with the norms and principles of the international law. We hope
for peaceful settlement. The international community should be more
active in settling the conflict as it continues to be the biggest
obstacle to the development of the whole region,” Aliyev said.

Speaking of oil and gas, Aliyev said that Azerbaijan may be a
fuel source for Europe, who is short of gas and is looking for
alternatives. We are laying pipelines to supply our oil and gas to
the world markets, Aliyev said. (525th Daily)

The law “On Political Parties” can shortly be changed. “First to
raise this issue was the ruling Yeni Azerbaycan party. The other
parties claim that we did it to pressure them. But the fact is that
some parts of the law have gone out of date and need revision. We
just wanted to bring it into line with the constitution. Fortunately,
the number of supporters has grown and the issue may soon find a real
solution,” says the vice speaker of the parliament Bahar Muradova.

The key point of the changes to the law is to ensure the transparency
of party budgets and to allow to authorities to control this process,
says 525th Daily.

“Azerbaijan has failed its CE commitments,” says Director of the
Institute for Peace and Democracy Leyla Yunus. When joining the CE
Azerbaijan undertook 21 commitments. Part of them (10 international
conventions, and the agreements to resolve the Karabakh conflict
by peace and to give ICRC access to all prisoners) have been met,
while the rest have not or met just formally. Civil advocate Eldar
Zeynalov says that the present situation in the country may lead to
new political arrests. (New Time)

The 1st anniversary of the death of Aslan Maskhadov, the leader of the
Chechen fighters, was commemorated in Baku Mar 9. New Time reports
Maskhadov’s son Anzor to reappear in Baku after long absence and
to address some tough words to Russia during the service. “We would
hardly comment on his words were they not made in our territory. If
our country is actually a friend to Russia, as our president Ilham
Aliyev said quite recently, then how could we allow such a thing to
happen? We all remember how our leaders begged President Putin to help
Azerbaijan in the Karabakh problem. And now – what will Putin think
of us? Once you blame separatism at home, you should blame its every
form everywhere. A many-year victim to separatism, Russia will hardly
stay indifferent to separatist declarations from our territory. Our
political and cultural figures were and are right when blaming their
Russian colleagues for visiting Nagorno Karabakh. And what now –
how should they in Russia react to a whole political ‘party’ by the
Maskhadov clique in Baku? No, dear gentlemen in power, you can’t
build your politics like that! You can’t have a grudge against your
own friend! Otherwise, you better not complain that nobody supports
you in the world!

Russia is not a weak state – it has enough levers to influence our
region. Alas, our authorities can in no way stop their old habit of
double-dealing, of serving both sides – they call it ‘a complementary
foreign policy.’ But this policy can lead us to a deadlock. God
forbid! This may be OK somewhere in Central Asia, but Azerbaijan is
too sensitive and geo-political important a region to act like that.

So, should our politicians any longer rely on their ability to
balance? They better decide: who we are with and where we are going”
says New Time.

Azerbaijan-Armenia. Karabakh conflict

In the last two years the US has been actively involved in the Karabakh
peace process, US Ambassador to Azerbaijan Reno Harnish says Mar
10. Azeri Press reports him as saying that continued deaths along
the front line prove that the conflict is not frozen. Harnish says
once more that the conflict must be resolved by talks. He regrets
the lack of agreement in Rambouillet and notes that the presidents
and FMs should continue their regular meetings. The two FMs and the
co-chairs should step up their efforts to settle the conflict.

Echo says: “The OSCE MG co-chairs are ambiguous about the results
of their Washington meeting.” The co-chairs Steven Mann (US),
Yuri Merzlyakov (Russia), Bernard Fassier (France) and the personal
representative of the OSCE chairman-in-office Andrzej Kasprzyk met
in Washington Mar 7-8 to analyze the results of the Armenian-Azeri
presidential meeting in Rambouillet and to outline further steps
in the Karabakh peace process. The meeting lasted for few days. The
co-chairs made no comments but just a statement urging the Armenian
and Azeri authorities to take measures to prepare their people
for peace rather than war and, based on the available principles,
to settle the conflict in 2006. Despite the failure in Rambouillet,
the co-chairs do believe that there are favorable conditions for a
Karabakh agreement in 2006 and urge the Armenian and Azeri authorities
to make relevant efforts to this end.

The co-chairs say that “big progress” was made during their last
year meetings with the sides, but they regret no progress despite
big chance in the last few weeks. Still they are convinced that 2006
is objectively promising for big progress and urge the Armenian and
Azeri authorities to work hard to this end.

“The results of the presidential talks in Rambouillet have forced
the OSCE MG co-chairs to review the positions of the conflicting
parties,” Azeri Deputy FM Araz Azimov says Mar 10. “The situation is
obviously hard, and the co-chairs should obviously refrain from any
statements. They have to – as they don’t want to risk. Any kind of
information by them now can make things worse or change their course,”
says Azimov. (Trend)

Zerkalo says: “Armenia is acting ‘the good boy.’ They openly say
they are ready to sign a peace agreement based on ‘the new Paris
principles,’ while the active opposition of mostly pro-Russian forces
to what the co-chairs propose proves that Russia is not very much
happy at this prospect.”

In fact, the MG-proposed agreement is good for Armenia. First, hardly
anybody in Moscow will now dare to call it “a Russian outpost”
in the South Caucasus. The country will now feel much freer to
go pro-American and get the consequent benefits: open border with
Turkey, multi-million free (unlike Azerbaijan) inflows in the economy,
no more financial responsibility for Karabakh. Financing Karabakh’s
“prosperity” will now be international donors and partly Azerbaijan –
for Russia is certainly not able or willing to do it.

Second, given the steadily worsening Russian-Georgian relations,
Armenia will thereby avoid a full transport blockade in case of a US
attack on Iran. That’s most probably why Armenia is holding top-secret
talks with the US for its involvement in the possible anti-Iranian
coalition, says Zerkalo with reference to reliable diplomatic sources.

What Armenia will have to give is what it can’t keep in any case –
the occupied districts around Nagorno Karabakh. But if viewed in
longer prospect, the “delayed referendum” scenario is not so very
good for Armenia – for it will just change its “master” rather than
become a part of a self-sufficient regional economic unit.

Meanwhile, Azerbaijan is forced to act “the bad boy” – a fact
indirectly confirmed by Azeri Deputy FM Araz Azimov, when he said that
the co-chairs’ “are restrained.” It is hardly a coincidence that their
first halt in the region will be Baku. This is also an indirect proof
that the Americans have more “problems” with Azerbaijan than with
Armenia. But given the reality of sanctions against Iran – including
military ones – the US may well increase its pressure on Baku…