Time is serving Azerbaijan: interview with Mubariz Ahmedoglu

Regnum, Russia
Aug. 25, 2006

A REGNUM correspondent in Baku has had an interview with the head
of the Center for Political Innovations and Technologies Mubariz
Ahmedoglu.

REGNUM: The Azeri and Armenian FMs have said they will meet shortly
in the framework of the Karabakh peace process. Will they discuss
new or old proposals?

They will hardly discuss new ideas. Let’s not forget that this is
their first meeting after the well-known statement by the OSCE MG
co-chairs. And, as you may know, ideas are, first, suggested by the
co-chairs and, only then, discussed by the Azeri and Armenian FMs and
presidents. On the other hand, the meeting of Elmar Mammadyarov and
Vardan Oskanyan may give a new impulse to the negotiating process,
and the co-chairs may turn this impulse into new proposals.

REGNUM: Mass media report people in Azerbaijan and Armenia to be
sure that the negotiating process has made no headway for many years
already. Who is the time serving: Azerbaijan or Armenia.

I think it is serving Azerbaijan. We have fewer problems. Azerbaijan
is getting stronger and is developing at record speed. The successful
implementation of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, the late
2006 launch of the Baku-Tbilisi-Eruzrum gas pipeline, the planned
construction of Kars-Akhlkalaki-Tbilisi-Baku railroad – all these
projects leave Armenia outside energy and transport routes.

Besides, in 2007 Armenia will elect parliament, a few months later
the self-proclaimed Nagorno Karabakh Republic and in February-March
2008 Armenia will elect presidents. So, Armenia is entering a phase
that will hardly be good for it. As you know, during elections a state
gets weaker. This is especially true for small countries like Armenia.

In one word, both conceptually and tactically, the time is serving
Azerbaijan. You may say that our country, too, will have a presidential
election in 2008, but internal stability, competent foreign policy,
growing popular incomes and weakening opposition exclude any rebellious
factors.

REGNUM: Is everything that simple? Let’s remember that we have a whole
grown up generation who has never seen Shusha, Lachin, Kalbajar,
other occupied Azeri towns or who have seen them only in early
childhood… Will those young people – most of them have already
been resettled from camps to comfortable townships – want to return
to destroyed houses, to their old homes?

We can also say that there is a whole generation of young people in
Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia who know nothing about Azerbaijan.

Everything depends not so much on these factors as they are as on
who and how will use them. For the beginning, I would like to note
that the Azeri Government will create all conditions for the return
of all refugees and displaced persons to Nagorno-Karabakh and other
occupied territories. Let’s not forget that old people have told
children and youths about their homelands: you can’t remove this
from their memory. And, finally, when the time of return comes, we
will need a month, at longest, to carry out propaganda. This will
be quite a large-scale propaganda as most of mass media are in the
hands of the state. Besides, you will hardly find any non-patriot
among the private TV or radio channels or newspapers.