ARMENIA URGED TO FOLLOW AZERI ‘DEMOCRATIC REFORM’
By Harry Tamrazian in Prague

Radio Liberty, Czech Republic
June 26 2006

Azerbaijan is moving faster than Armenia in democratizing its political
system despite being considered a more undemocratic country by Western
human rights organizations, according to a senior U.S. administration
official.

In an RFE/RL interview late last week, Matthew Bryza, the U.S. deputy
assistant secretary of state for Europe and Eurasia, implied that
President Robert Kocharian has to follow Azerbaijan’s reform example if
he wants to be received by President George W. Bush at the White House.

Washington normally snubs those foreign leaders who were not elected
in polls deemed free and fair by the international community. Bush
made what is widely seen as an exception to that rule when he held
talks with Azerbaijan’s Ilham Aliev at the White House last April.

The talks came five months after an Azerbaijani parliamentary election
that was denounced as fraudulent by Western observers.

Asked whether Kocharian too can now count on securing a White
House reception, Bryza said, "We obviously don’t look at balancing
presidential meetings like that, but there’s no reason not to want
President Kocharian to come to Washington. Let me just say I hope we
can see a similar series of positive steps on democratic reform in
Armenia as we hope we are starting to see in Azerbaijan."

"Maybe we’re wrong about Azerbaijan. Maybe we’re overly hopeful. But
we think things are moving in a positive direction. And we hope to
see more of that from Armenia," he said.

Bryza claimed that there were "some significant improvements" in
the Azerbaijani authorities’ conduct of the November parliamentary
election even if they "didn’t go as far as we would like."

A monitoring mission from the Organization for Security and
Cooperation in Europe, headed by a U.S. congressman, described the
polls as deeply flawed, citing numerous serious violations witnessed
by its observers. Western human rights groups also condemned a brutal
break-up by security forces of a big opposition demonstration in Baku
against the official vote results.

In a statement issued ahead of Aliev’s Washington trip, Human Rights
Watch urged Bush to "press for concrete progress in Azerbaijan’s poor
human rights record." The respected watchdog said the Azerbaijani
government continues to harass political opponents and has yet to
implement election-related recommendations of the OSCE and the Council
of Europe.

Another New York-based group, Freedom House, again rated Armenia more
highly than Azerbaijan in it latest annual survey of political reform
across Eastern Europe and the former Soviet that was released earlier
this month. "Azerbaijan’s democratic performance continues to show
signs of deterioration, especially in the categories of electoral
process and civil society," the survey said, explaining a drop in
the country’s already poor democracy rating.

By contrast, the same rating assigned by Freedom House to Armenia
improved slightly. The watchdog argued that although the November
constitutional referendum in Armenia was also flawed, it resulted in
the enactment of amendments that "should provide a more even balance
of power between the president, Parliament and the judiciary."

Bryza insisted that democratic reform is high on the Bush
administration’s agenda but admitted that other factors such as
Azerbaijan’s oil reserves and geographic location are also at play.

"Just because Azerbaijan hasn’t gone as far as we would like on
democracy doesn’t mean we’re going to ignore our energy interests or
our military interests," he said.

"Why would we freeze out President Ilham Aliev from contact with our
president forever because we think he needs to do more on democracy?

That doesn’t make sense," he added.

Turning to the Armenian government, Bryza pointed to its handling of
the constitutional referendum which was also criticized by European
observers and denounced as fraudulent by the Armenian opposition.

Washington expects relevant "positive changes" from Yerevan before
the next Armenian elections, he said.

Incidentally the Bush administration official stopped short of
questioning the Kocharian administration’s commitment to democratic
change when he spoke with RFE/RL in the wake of the disputed
referendum. "It’s too early to judge whether or not democracy has
moved forward," he said on December 7.

Bryza also steered clear of criticizing the Armenian authorities’
democracy and human rights records when he visited Yerevan last March,
stressing instead the importance of building democracy "from the bottom
up." He said Washington regards Armenia as a "democratizing country."