MEDVEDEV AND ALIYEV DISCUSS GEORGIA
By Anatoly Medetsky
The Moscow Times
Sept 17 2008
Russia
President Dmitry Medvedev said Tuesday that he briefed his Azeri
counterpart, Ilham Aliyev, on Russia’s policies regarding Georgia,
a common neighbor, during a meeting in Moscow.
The visit took place as Russia’s neighbors are reassessing their
relations with Moscow in the wake of its brief war with Tbilisi and
recognition of two separatist Georgian provinces as independent states
last month.
The two presidents discussed Azerbaijan’s own breakaway region of
Nagorno-Karabakh, which is backed by Armenia, they said. Medvedev
voiced support for direct talks between Azerbaijan and Armenia, while
Aliyev said he saw "good prospects for the situation to improve,"
Interfax reported.
Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan and Medvedev have met twice this
month, in Sochi and during a meeting of the Collective Security
Treaty Organization.
Aliyev said problems in the region must be resolved through dialog and
extolled his country’s relations with Russia. "If everybody had such
neighborly relations as Russia and Azerbaijan have, not only conflicts,
but also misunderstandings wouldn’t take place at all," he said.
Medvedev visited Azerbaijan on July 3 in one of his first foreign
trips as president, underlining the priority that Moscow has given
to ties with the energy-rich country. Gazprom chief Alexei Miller
made an offer then to buy Azeri gas at market prices.
Medvedev said Tuesday’s discussions involved energy cooperation. A
spokeswoman for Gazprom could not say immediately whether the company’s
offer to purchase Azeri gas made any progress at the talks.
Azerbaijan, which seeks a balance between the United States and
Russia in its foreign policy, has yet to respond to the energy
offer. U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney went to Baku on Sept. 3 to
reiterate that his country wants more Azeri oil and gas to bypass
Russia on its way to international markets.
Medvedev and Aliyev met to discuss relations under the new conditions
set by the conflict with Georgia and Western criticism of Moscow,
said Vladimir Zharikhin, deputy director of the CIS Institute, a
think tank that studies the loose group of former Soviet republics
known as the Commonwealth of Independent States.