ARIF YUNUSOV: MOST AZERIS PREFER THE MILITARY RESOLUTION OF THE KARABAKH CONFLICT

ArmRadio.am
24.05.2007 18:05

"Azerbaijan’s foreign policy is oriented towards the West, while the
society prefers the Islamic way of development," Director of Peace
and War Institute of Baku Arif Yunusov stated at the "Caucasus 2007"
conference in Yerevan organized by the Caucasus Media Institute. He
said that beginning from 2004 Islam is not used in negative context
in the Azeri press. "I must notice that West for Azerbaijan is not
only the US, but also Turkey, Israel and other states. We prefer to
move towards the Turkish direction. There also exists a danger of
involving Azerbaijan in the war against Iran, if such a thing happens.

It’s true that Azerbaijan will not be in the foreground, it may
be used by the United States as a subsidiary bridgehead. In this
case a humanitarian catastrophe awaits us. Some 40-50 thousands of
refugees from Iran have already flooded Baku and buy apartments. And
what will happen in case of military invasion? It is even terrible
to think about it. The border between the two countries is rather
transparent and about one million refugees may arrive in Azerbaijan
and our country just will not be able to accept them," Yunusov said.

Currently an imitation of negotiation process on the Nagorno Karabakh
conflict settlement is on the way, Arif Yunusov stated. He said
Azerbaijan and Armenia want failure in negotiations. "However it does
not satisfy the United States, and that’s why they initiated new visits
of OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs to the region," he underlined. Yunusov
also thinks, "the greater part of the Azeri society is for solving
the Karabakh problem in a military way". " According to poll results,
58-64 percent of the population wants a war, and generally the younger
generation expressed such opinion. They do not see any other solution
of the problem," he underscored.