BAKU BELIEVES THAT NICOLAS SARKOZY WILL VISIT AZERBAIJAN "REGARDLESS OF THE ARMENIAN PRESSURE"
PanARMENIAN.Net
Analytical Department
07.08.2007 GMT+04:00
Azerbaijan thinks that hydrocarbon may overweight anything, including
moral criteria, and hope to resolve the Karabakh Conflict to its favor.
During the last visit of President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev to
France, an agreement about Nicolas Sarkozy’s possible visit to Baku
was reached. However this visit is already being discussed in Baku
as something decided and not apt to undergo any changes. Moreover,
according to the Azai Guliyev, "Sarkozy is going to visit Azerbaijan
regardless of the Armenian pressure".
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ If President of France doesn’t visit Baku,
according to Azerbaijan, it will mean, that "it gave away to the
Armenian pressure". According to newspaper "Echo", France has a
strong and rather influential Armenian Diaspora supporting Armenia:
"In spite of everything though the French leader is planning to visit
Azerbaijan, after the previous President of France paid an official
visit to Yerevan.
This is certainly worth attention, as it speaks of the fact that
President of France implements a pragmatic policy and acts against the
pro-Armenian powers. The existence of balanced politics is undeniable".
By the way it is worth mentioning that the visits do not depend or in
any case almost do not depend on either party’s wish. Azerbaijan thinks
that hydrocarbon may overweight anything, including moral criteria,
and hope to resolve the Karabakh Conflict to its favor. France,
being included in OSCE Minsk Group, "may be of essential help"
to Azerbaijan. In any case Baku has great expectations regarding
the above-mentioned. True, if Sarkozy visits Azerbaijan, he will
be expected to confirm the stability of the Azeri borders. However,
another possibility is that Paris may once again underline, that the
agreement should be reached between conflicting parties.
Azerbaijan, of course, would not be happy with such variant. According
to Azai Guliyev, Baku has done its best. "We diversify the routs
of hydrocarbon resources to Europe; we have fulfilled the BTC
(Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan) project, we are involved in all the projects
carried out by NATO, as well as we became one of the first Islamic
countries taking part in peacemaking operations in Iraq and
Afghanistan, etc.
Unfortunately, our country hasn’t got any response yet, i.e. support
to the Azeri position," thinks the deputy. In fact once again Baku is
trying to achieve its aim by the help of its gas and oil, forgetting
that the only country that can really manipulate and dictate its
rules and conditions is Russia, but never Azerbaijan. If taking into
consideration "tenuous" relationship of France with Baku’s major
ally Turkey, expectations about N. Sarkozy’s supposed visit are more
than unreasonable.
The whole matter is that President of France, as well as the European
Union are well-aware of Azerbaijan’s domestic situation, just like of
the reasons of the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict. Azeri Press is free to
write that another official representative of this or that country
has announced about the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, or that
Europe and the whole world will not survive without Baku’s energy
supply, these are just empty words. Pragmatic Sarkozy will act only
to its country’s and Europe’s favor, where by the way he has one of
the leading roles. If Baku really wants to get something from EU, it
must first of all change its policy and stop denying the fact that
Nagorno-Karabakh is an independent state, not depending on Baku’s
oil, for sake of which it was given to Azerbaijan in 1920, the oil,
which today makes only the 0.7% of the world oil stock.