ELNUR BAIMOV: "WE HAVE AGAIN WITNESSED THE NEXT DIPLOMATIC DEFEAT OF RUSSIA"

Today.Az
11 August 2008 [18:25]

Interview with editor-in-chief of Day.Az news agency Elnur Baimov.

– What do you think are the reasons of the current military clash
between Georgia and Russia?

– The events, now ongoing in Georgia, whose integral part is South
Ossetia, can be assessed as a new and, unfortunately, bloody stage
of the geopolitical clash for influence in the South Caucasus region
between Russia and the United States. It is clear that the United
States undertake steps for extruding Russia from our region and thus
establish a single control over this area, which is a strategical
knot of energy and transport communications.

Naturally, Russia will never agree on leaving the region on the
voluntary basis, for the empire ambitions of its working leadership,
highly encouraged by large oil revenues, are a bad basis for
comprehension of the current realities and predicting possible
consequences of open military counteraction with Georgia, which
we are witnessing at the moment. In the result, Russia allowed to
involved itself into a military conflict with Georgia and it has been
presented as an aggressor to the world society, while its influence
in the region has been undermined.

In other words, we have all witnessed the next diplomatic defeat of
Russia, which is also strengthened by the erroneous and unacceptably
impulsive refusal of the Russian leadership to hold talks with Georgian
President Mikhail Saakashvili. No matter if the Kremlin wants it or
no, but today the head of the Georgian state is Mikhail Saakashvili,
which means that talks with him are inevitable.

– How will Russia try to justify itself for bombing Poti, Gorum,
Maneuli and other cities and regions of Georgia?

– We have heard some Russian diplomats saying that Russia’s actions
are explained by "an attempt to protect the population of South Ossetia
from "genocide" by Georgia. But in the eyes of the world society, which
recognizes the supremacy of the principle of territorial integrity of
the states over the national right for self-determination, in the eyes
of a number of states, who have their own problems with separatism,
such Kremlin’s statements are unclear.

I would like to suppose that in current conditions, to justify itself,
Russia will focus on the attempt to prove that Georgians were first
to start fire, that they fired at the peacekeeping forces, while the
main duty of the Russian leadership is to defend its peacekeepers.

I will not be a bit surprised if some "independent political
scientists", disciplined by the Kremlin, will play on the revenge
jingoism of the public on the "independent" Russian TV channels and
will start to prove that in 1989 US forces intervened in Panama to
overthrow general Noriega and the cause for intervention became a
murder of the US servicemen at one of the bloc posts.

But these grounds, acceptable for average Russians, are absolutely
inappropriate in the eyes of international diplomats, for it would be
extremely difficult for Russia to prove that these were not Russian
peacekeepers but Georgians who fired the first.

Moreover, Russia attacked different parts of Georgia, which were
by no way the areas of the Georgian-South-Ossetian conflict, which
makes Georgian positions in the diplomatic counteraction with Russia
more advantageous.

– How do you view Azerbaijan’s position in the said conflict?

– I view it as balanced and the only admissible one. Official Baku
has openly supported the territorial integrity of Georgia, which is
in fact the condemnation of Russia’s actions.

At the same time, the leading Azerbaijani mass medias, including
Day.Az, present the most objective and comprehensive information from
the conflict area, filling the information vacuum, established by a
number of problems with Georgia’s access to internet and Georgian TV
channels, watched by few people throughout the world.

In fact, it is we that oppose Russia disinformation medias, which have
started the anti-Georgian hysteria on their TV channels by means of
a one-sided provision of information, demonstration of terrifying
materials about killed Georgian servicemen, who fought for the
territorial integrity of the country, but who are now presented as
fascists and barbarists, committing "genocide" of the Ossetian people.

I want to believe that this anti-Georgian hysteria in Russia will not
cause serious consequences, such as the demonstrative "Lynch law" over
the pupils of Georgian origin, who will soon attend Russian schools,
and not encourage skinheads, who may start beatings of Georgians at
Russia’s streets.

I call on the Russian human rights activists to be ready to such
developments and openly state their inadmissibility.

Speaking of Azerbaijan’s support to Georgia, it should be reminded that
the current actions of official Tbilisi, rule of democratic powers in
this country, has become possible due to country’s becoming a place
of geopolitical clash of interests between Russia and the United
States. This was possible because Georgia has become a transit country
in the regional projects, implemented in the South Caucasus region.

I think it would be unnecessary to recall that the appearance
and implementation of such projects as Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan and
Baku-Tbilisi-Erzirum gas pipeline and the Kars-Akhalkalaki-Tbilisi-Baku
railroad became possible owing to the will and correct external policy
of Azerbaijan.

In other words, Azerbaijan has firmly stated its future development
of the region and openly helped Georgia. It can not and must not do
anything more at the current stage, as the open military support
of Azerbaijan to Georgia may turn our country into the conflict
party, which is not just a mistake but a crime due to the unsettled
Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict.

– How do you think this conflict will end?

– South Ossetia’s further destiny will be settled in the direct
dialogue between Russia and the United States. It means that it will
not be recognized by anyone, but its status will not be defined in
the next ten years.

As for the nearest perspective, the main events, I think, will flow in
the political and diplomatic course, that is: Russia will be accused
of aggression against a weaker neighbor and coarse interference with
its internal affairs.

A global propaganda campaign on diplomatic, political and military
protection of Georgia from Russia’s aggression, whose actions were
represented as an attempt of Russia’s regime to suppress the just
established Georgian democracy, will be initiated.

Everything will be considered as a political and legal basis for
the soonest admission of Georgia into western international military
and political institutions, primarily NATO. In turn, it will become
a legal basis for deployment of any US troops, including strategic
ones, in Georgia. It will lead to Russia’s eventual loss of the
South Caucasus region and creation of conditions for the growth of
anti-American moods in Russia.

In the result, the fight for domination in the strategically important
regions of the world will continue between the United States and
Russia.

This fight will become direct and more open and like in the years of
cold the war the parties will just throw off their masks.