AZERI SPOKESMAN DENIES ARMENIAN PRESIDENT-ELECT’S REMARKS

Azad Azarbaycan TV
March 13 2008
Azerbaijan

Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry spokesman has dismissed as illogical
the Armenian president-elect’s remarks that economic cooperation
between Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey is transforming into a military
alliance.

Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey are strategic partners, this cooperation
is expanding but the formation of a military alliance is out of
question, Azad Azarbaycan TV quoted Xazar Ibrahim as saying on 13
March. Armenia is the only state in the region which is a member of
a military bloc, Ibrahim said.

At the same time he ruled out the possibility of Armenia’s involvement
in regional projects unless the country changes its foreign policy. If
Armenia had had good neighbourly relations with neighbouring states
instead of putting territorial claims to them, the country could
have been involved in regional projects today, the TV quoted Ibrahim
as saying.

BBCM note: Armenian Prime Minister and president-elect Serzh
Sargsyan said at a meeting with the students of the Armenian
State Economics University on 12 March that the project of the
Baku-Tbilisi-Akhalkalaki-Kars railway is directed against much larger
countries than Armenia. He also said that Armenia had been offered
to agree with leaving Nagornyy Karabakh in Azerbaijan in exchange
for laying the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline via Armenia’s territory
but did not agree.