AZERBAIJANI PRESIDENT CAN SAY ANYTHING

Azat Artsakh, Republic of Nagorno Karabakh
Nov 9 2006

The only obstacle in continuing the talks and reaching settlement is
the lack of confidence. Everyone points to this, the EU, the OSCE,
the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs. And there is nothing the world can
do here. The reason is not the reluctance of the Armenian side for
a dialogue, like Azerbaijan is fond of to present, but the idea
of complete isolation of Armenia put forward by Ilham Aliyev. The
Azerbaijani president often appears to have lost the sense of
reality, and he thinks that if Azerbaijan is a medieval feudal state,
others also think like him: destroy Armenia, which dares to disturb
Azerbaijan. And while the Azerbaijani media are delighted to hear
the confessions of their president, the other countries keep silent.

Ostensibly, this silence indicates reluctance to comment on nonsense
rather than agreement. The US co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group
Matthew Bryza gave the best evaluation. He said the Azerbaijani
president may say anything, but they are not going to comment on his
statements. Ilham Aliyev will fail to drag Armenia to a deadlock and
become a "nation’s leader" like his father for several reasons. Most
importantly, he makes statement which would be appropriate for an
ambitious tribal chieftain rather, whereas Heydar Aliyev would never
make such statements. He had a more serious approach to the issues.

He did not simply make allegations but paid the mass media to concoct
pro-Azerbaijani reports. However, soon Moscow and not only Moscow
realized this and started to report the reality. By exaggerating the
influence of the Armenian lobby, Azerbaijan, roughly speaking, doubts
the reason of the entire world. In Baku too they realize that Ilham
Aliyev’s policy on Armenia leads nowhere. They also know that not only
the patience of the Azerbaijani people may start wearing thin, which
does not care, in the long run, but also the international community
may run out of patience. Ilham Aliyevs hopes based on the political
dividends of the oil pipeline cannot become the truncheon to "keep
down" the Armenians of Karabakh. And these dividends are like soap
bubbles, for according to the American expert Richard Kirakosyan,
the value of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan depends on Kazakhstan. In other
words, if the president of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev suddenly
decides that he need not support Azerbaijan, he will turn off the
spigot, and the flow of Aliyev’s oil dollars will stop. And if we
consider the decline of price of oil, Azerbaijan will be having serious
trouble. The Caspian oil is only 3 percent of the world resources,
meanwhile 63 percent is in the Near East. Azerbaijan cannot be taken
seriously by the United States and Europe as a major supplier of
oil. Consequently, the political importance of this country directly
depends on this 3 percent.