AZERI PUNDIT PESSIMISTIC ABOUT HIGH-LEVEL TALKS WITH ARMENIA

Day.az, Azerbaijan
Nov 28 2006

Well-known political expert Rasim Musabayov has granted an exclusive
interview to Day.az.

[Correspondent] What do you expect from the forthcoming Minsk meeting
between the presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia, Ilham Aliyev and
Robert Kocharyan?

[Musabayov] There is a minimal possibility that some document will be
signed after the meeting. There is not even a hint that the foreign
ministers have agreed on the text of such a document. On the contrary,
the statements that Ilham Aliyev and Robert Kocharyan made before
the meeting in Minsk do not inspire optimism and show that it will
be difficult to bring the positions of the sides closer.

Therefore, it would be good if the presidents appear in front of
journalists together after the meeting to say that the negotiations
were useful. And it should be regarded as success if there is a
statement that they managed to bring their positions on disputable
issues closer and that the foreign ministers of the two states were
instructed to hold an additional round of negotiations bearing in
mind the progress achieved during the presidents’ meeting.

[Passage omitted: on Russia’s relations with Georgia and other
countries]

[Correspondent] What kind of policy do you think is Azerbaijan
pursuing now?

[Musabayov] A prudent one, and this is justified by the situation.

Unlike Georgia and Ukraine, Azerbaijan is not only under pressure
from Moscow, but also has quite problem relations with neighbouring
Iran and a frozen war with Armenia.

Therefore, the republic’s leadership has to manoeuvre, balance and try
not to irritate Moscow even more with its open pro-Western orientation.

But we should not forget where our strategic pipelines go as well
as the fact that we have the leading Western energy company BP as a
partner and that fraternal Turkey, our only real strategic partner,
is a member state of NATO. All this defines Azerbaijan’s pro-Western
orientation.

We should honour our commitments step by step within the framework of
Azerbaijan’s Individual Partnership Action Plan [IPAP] with NATO and
the Azerbaijan-EU Action Plan. As for political decisions and making
them public, the time will come for them.