Turan news agency, Azerbaijan
Sept 4 2008
The intriguing visit of Cheney to Baku
The prompt visit to Baku of US Vice President Dick Cheney during his
swift tour along the Azerbaijan-Georgia-Ukraine-Italy route, which
became an event of an extraordinary significance, actually proceeded
under the veil of secrecy. In essence, for the first time such a
mighty, impressive and special mission from Washington, led by the
second man of the US administration, arrived in Azerbaijan.
Visit of multiple meaning
In other – calmer and "safer" time, such a high-ranking visit would
have gone in a superpompous festive atmosphere and official mass media
outlets of the country would have tried to squeeze maximum propaganda
effect out of it. Under the current confrontational situation, by
virtue of sharply increasing geopolitical risks in the region and
threats, the visit of Cheney went on in everyday working, strictly
confidential mode with lack of information.
>From condensed and vague information of the White House administration
ahead of the visit followed to obtain that the key topics of the
negotiations between Dick Cheney and Ilham Aliyev would be the
situation around Georgia, cooperation between Washington and Baku in
the fight against threats of terror, the issues of energy and the
delivery of energy resources to world markets, the settlement of the
Nagornyy Karabakh problem as well as issues of democracy and supremacy
of laws in the light of the upcoming [on 15 October] presidential
election in Azerbaijan.
According to the same source, the visits of Cheney to Azerbaijan,
Georgia and Ukraine were aimed at "assuring them of remaining
deep-rooted US interest in the region and its firm intention to keep
cooperating over them". "The appearance of US Vice President Cheney in
places where he has not been so far is a sign of support. I would not
underestimate the importance of such a signal by the vice president
and the president, who considered it important to send Cheney there
with such a mission in the middle of such a crisis," a high-ranking
representative of the US State Department said.
USA to stand firm behind the allies
In his words, in the region, where Cheney is visiting, the USA "is
firmly intended to strengthen cooperation in both economic and
political as well as in security spheres". Upon arrival in Baku of the
high-level delegation from the USA, Cheney’s national security aide,
John Hanna, said briefly that the key aim of the visit is to
demonstrate the US interest in security and stability in this part of
the hemisphere. "The US administration attaches great significance to
this swift visit of Cheney."
In Baku the US vice president had meetings with heads of the leading
oil companies (in particular, BP) which once more time demonstrated
priority of the hidden energy motive of the visit, and then he had
intensive tête-à-tête talks with President Ilham Aliyev. A brief press
report was released at the end of the talks. Cheney did not hide that
his visit was to demonstrate the US support to its partners in the CIS
[the Commonwealth of Independent States]. Cheney said that the Russian
military operation against Georgia and one-sided recognition of South
Ossetia and Abkhazia by Moscow added to significance of the visit.
The USA is deeply interested in welfare of its allies in the Caucasus
region, the US vice president said.. "President Bush has sent me here
with a precise message to the people of Azerbaijan and the whole
region: the USA has deep and firm interests in your wellbeing and
security," he said. Cheney also added that the USA wants to cooperate
with Azerbaijan for the development of extra routes of exporting
energy resources.
Russia threats US interests in the region
"The USA is convinced that together with European countries and
Turkey, we have to work with Azerbaijan and other countries of
Caucasus and Central Asia over extra routes of exporting energy
resources which will secure their free flow," said he.
So the intriguing visit of Cheney has taken place and it remains to
guess how far the negotiations turned out to be productive and to what
extend the sides (Baku and Washington) have reached understanding and
remained satisfied with the outcome of the meetings. Time will show
it.
In the light of extreme escalation of tension in the region and
dangerous confrontation between the West (USA) and Russia, the visit
of Cheney to Baku (and further on to Tbilisi and Kiev) caused special
interests and was full of intriguing underlying motives.
The swift tour with lack of information in the context of complexity
(entanglement) of the situation that has emerged in the region,
ambiguity of the future development of the situation and ambiguous
"silence" of official Baku do not allow us to unambiguously assess the
outcome of the visit and form well-grounded predictions.
At the same time, one aspect is out of question: the USA has perceived
the "anti-GUAM [the alliance of Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and
Moldova] assault" of Russia started in Georgia as a very serious
threat to own geopolitical and energy interests and is intended to
maximum attach efforts to maintain security of own allies in the
post-Soviet space and lead alternative oil and gas projects to logical
end.
It is also clear that in this global geopolitical and energy battle of
the West (USA) with Russia, an important role is given to Azerbaijan
which will hardly manage to keep silent and sit on the fence in the
current conditions. Baku is also facing the burden of the complicated
choice.