BAKU PREPARES FOR NEW PHASE IN U.S.-AZERBAIJANI STRATEGIC RELATIONS
By Taleh Ziyadov

Eurasia Daily Monitor, DC
April 12 2006

As Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliev prepares to visit the United
States at the end of April, several high-ranking officials from
Azerbaijan have already toured Washington and explored ways to
strengthen U.S.-Azerbaijan relations.

On March 29, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan Araz
Azimov arrived in Washington to participate in the next round of the
U.S.-Azerbaijan security dialogue. Bilateral cooperation on security
in the Caspian region began in 1996 and has intensified considerably
since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

Azimov, who headed the interagency delegation from Azerbaijan, was
accompanied by Azerbaijan’s deputy minister of national security,
Fuad Iskenderov; the deputy chief of State Border Services, Farhad
Tagizade; and the commander-in-chief of the Azerbaijani Navy, Shahin
Sultanov (AzerTag, March 31).

Azimov met with Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military
Affairs John Hillen, who represented the U.S. delegation. Officials
from both states discussed “a wide range of security and defense
issues, and highlighted the joint commitment to increased cooperation
[between Baku and Washington]” (State Department statement, March 31).

In his interview with the Azerbaijan state news agency AzerTag, Azimov
highlighted the main issues discussed during his talks, including the
“security of Azerbaijan at national and regional levels, relations
within NATO, the increasing role of the OSCE in the South Caucasus,
settlement of regional conflicts, relations among the Caspian coastal
states, and the military-political situation in the Caspian basin”
(AzerTag, March 31).

On March 30, Azimov delivered a speech at the Center for Strategic
and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, DC, and talked about
the Karabakh peace process, Azerbaijan’s energy and security policies,
and its Euro-Atlantic agenda.

Asked whether Iran was a subject of discussions, he reminded, “Some
130-km long section of the Azerbaijan-Iran border is currently under
Armenian occupation and outside of Azerbaijan’s control, which is a
serious security threat.” In addition, Azimov stated that Iran’s recent
activities in the southern sector of the Caspian Sea, which Azerbaijan
shares with Iran, worried official Baku. As for the Iranian nuclear
program, he stressed that Azerbaijan supports a peaceful resolution
of the issue (AzerTag, March 31).

Following Azimov’s visit, the Minister Foreign Affairs Elmar
Mammadyarov arrived in Washington on April 7. Mammadyarov also met
with high-ranking U.S. officials, including U.S. Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice.

In his speech at Heritage Foundation on Friday, April 7, Mammadyarov
described Azerbaijan as a “strategic ally” of the United States and
listed Azerbaijan’s economic achievements in the last 15 years.

Deepening U.S.-Azerbaijan relations “corresponds to our national
interest” and Baku and Washington “are working quite successfully” in
this direction Mammadyarov remarked. He also mentioned the successful
cooperation between the United States and Azerbaijan in the energy and
security field, pointing to the construction of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan
oil and the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum natural gas pipelines and two radar
stations in Azerbaijan (Heritage.org, April 7).

Mammadyarov told Jamestown that soon Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkey
would begin construction of another strategically important project,
the Baku-Tbilisi-Akhalkalaki-Kars railway. This project will connect
Trans-European and Trans-Asian railway networks and will allow
Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Central Asian states to ship their goods
and products to Turkey and onward to Europe by rail.

One of the central components of the U.S.-Azerbaijan security dialogue
has been the Karabakh peace process. The February meeting of the
presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan in France resulted in a deadlock
and produced no results. Although the OSCE co-chairs for the Karabakh
peace process remain optimistic about a possible breakthrough in 2006,
the failure of talks in Paris stressed the need for new proposals.

After meeting with Rice, Mammadyarov stated that Washington had made
him a “very interesting” proposal for resolution of the Karabakh
conflict. He added that the Azerbaijani government would consider
the U.S. proposal and would make its position public when U.S. OSCE
co-chair Steven Mann visits Baku on April 18 (Day.az, April 8).

The U.S. interest in speeding up the resolution of Karabakh conflict
has led the Azerbaijani media and local analysts to question the U.S.

role in the region. But official Baku has used Washington’s growing
interest in the region as an opportunity to strengthen U.S.-Azerbaijani
bilateral relations.

According to Ali Hasanov, head of the socio-political department of
presidential administration, “Clearly, the U.S. does not want the
resumption of hostilities in the region. We too would like to resolve
the Karabakh conflict this year. But the fact is that Armenia still
occupies Azerbaijan’s territories and Baku preserves its right to
restore its territorial integrity. We want the U.S. and other OSCE
Minsk group states to pressure Armenia” (Day.az, April 12).

For Azerbaijan, the return of internally displaced persons to
their homes and the question of the country’s territorial integrity
continue to play a critical role in the peace talks. Baku hopes that
its growing ties with Washington could result in a more favorable
peace agreement and change the status quo in the region by ending the
Karabakh conflict. Hence, the United States could become a leading
player in the Karabakh peace process and U.S.-Azerbaijan strategic
relations could further increase U.S. influence in the Caspian region.