AZERBAIJANI POLITICIANS DISAGREE WITH FRANCE’S NEW PRESIDENT

Trend News Agency, Azerbaijan
May 7 2007

Azerbaijan, Baku / Trend corr S. Aghayeva / Azerbaijani politician
Vefa Guluzadeh, believes the election of Nicola Sarcozy, President
of France is not a good thing for Azerbaijan. The major problem for
Azerbaijan is that the new president will adhere to its pro-Armenian
position, regarding Nagorno-Karabakh, as the Armenians backed him in
the elections.

Guluzadeh does not consider that the election of Sarcozy to be the
nation’s choice. "This is the force of a definite oligarchic industrial
military complex, which dominates France at present," he stated.

Touching upon the further relationships between Azerbaijan and France,
the politician noted that he did not consider the present level of
relationships to be developed sufficiently. "The economic bonds between
Azerbaijan and France are established on a mutually beneficial base,"
he stressed.

Another Azerbaijani politician Rasim Musabeyov believes that despite
the election of a new president, the policy of the country towards
Azerbaijan will not change. The state is headed by the political
party which backed Jacques Chiraque.

The politician did not rule out the possibility of certain changes
in France’s political course. According to him, Chiraque displayed
keen interest in the solution to the regional problems including
the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. However, Sarcozy will not deal with
this problem in the commencement of his presidency. He will focus on
internal political problems and issues of European integration. In
total the policy will remain the same.

As a result of the presidential elections held on 6 May in France,
the representative of the right wing, Nicola Sarcozy received 53.06%
of the votes, while socialist Segolen Ruayal received 46.94%. The
difference made up some 2mln votes.

The attendance at the elections was the highest compared to the last
20 years (85%).