IF THE USA AND RUSSIA AGREE UPON IMPLEMENTATION OF GABALA RADAR STATION, NO ONE WILL EVER ASK BAKU’S OPINION ABOUT THE ISSUE
"PanARMENIAN.Net" analytical department

PanARMENIAN.Net
09.06.2007 GMT+04:00

Russia’s proposal to the USA regarding the missile defense system
speaks of Russia’s readiness to solve the security problems together
with America and Europe in a constructive way.

The RF President’s proposal regarding the common implementation of
the Gabala radar station instead of locating missile defense system
in Poland and the Czech Republic came as a shock. Azerbaijan has
already started to think it over, whether or not to agree with RF
President’s initiative, unless the US Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice announced in an interview with Associate Press that it should
still be found out how important Azerbaijan is to the USA in the
context of missile defense.

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ In other words if the great powers agree upon
implementation of Gabala radar station, no one will ever ask Baku’s
opinion about the issue. It should also be mentioned that Azerbaijan
thinks that with the help of Gabala Radar Station Russia realizes a
kind of technical reconnaissance of Turkey, which gives Baku grounds
to worry. But the radar station will enable spying on Iran, which is
more important now. We may assume that Putin’s step might be dictated
by its wish to be with the West in the issue regarding Iran nuclear
problem. It is hard to predict whether or not the relationship between
Moscow and Tehran will go worse if the RF President takes an obvious
pro-western position in this issue. Yet, there is no doubt that this
radar station is of great interest to the USA.

Another consideration is that Putin simply doesn’t want to be involved
in arms race keeping in mind what it led to in the times of Ronald
Reagan. Then exactly the arms race became one of the reasons of the
USSR breakdown, and Putin certainly doesn’t want Russia’s breakdown.

On January 25, 2002 Heydar Aliyev and Vladimir Putin signed an
intergovernmental agreement "about the status, the principles and
conditions of implementation of informational-analytical center in
Gabala". As a result Russia gained the right of using the station
with the period of 10 years. The object lease will cost Moscow $7
million a year, $5 million for energy usage, plus $10 million for
all public utilities. The term of lease expires in 2012, when the
station is already outdated in spite of the ongoing upgrades.

"The radar station in Gabala indeed allows controlling not only the
launch of intercontinental missiles, but also cruise missiles in a
huge sector to the south of the Russian border. Russia’s proposal
to the USA regarding the missile defense system speaks of Russia’s
readiness to solve the security problems together with America and
Europe in a constructive way," said the RF first deputy prime minister
Sergey Ivanov.

The station is located near the city Gabala in Azerbaijan. It is a
fixed radar station like Daryal, included in the system of missile
attack prevention.

The construction has been carried out since 1976. The radar station
is used for tracking the launch of ballistic missile from Asia and the
area of the Indian Ocean, as well as for controlling the space objects.

Daryal cannot cover missiles one after another, which theoretically
must be headed to Europe.

The experts claim that from the military point of view one only radar
station in Azerbaijan will protect the Continent from hypothetic
threat from Iran and North Korea better, than the whole program
of locating new missile defense system in Europe worked out by
the Pentagon. And this project will cost much less expensive. But
a contradictory image is seen in the countries which are directly
involved in these events; the official representatives of the Czech
Republic and Poland do not hurry to feel glad together with EU, and it
is quite understandable; besides the military aspects, the project of
"the European missile shield" promises a number of economic benefits
to their countries. However, it should not be disregarded that the
2/3 of the population of their countries is against locating the US
elements of missile defense radar system in their territories.