THE WASHINGTON TIMES HOSTS CONFERENCE ON US-AZERBAIJAN RELATIONS VIDEO

The Azerbaijan State Telegraph Agency
Feb 5 2015

04.02.2015 [09:01]

Washington, February 4, AzerTAc

The Washington Times has hosted a conference on the US-Azerbaijan
relations.The event saw speeches by Azerbaijan`s Ambassador to the
United States Elin Suleymanov, Chairman of Azerbaijan`s Parliament
Committee for International Relations and Interparliamentary Ties,
head of the Azerbaijani delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of
the Council of Europe (PACE) Samad Seyidov and MP Asim Mollazade. “We
are talking about the essence of the strategic vision of the United
States of America, about the Southern Gas Corridor. This is not a
corridor of gas and oil; this is a corridor of freedom,” said Samad
Seyidov.Ambassador Elin Suleymanov explained that without an overall
strategy, the U.S. is wasting efforts to fix a crop of smaller problems
in the region.”The lack of clearly pronounced strategic outlook it’s
basically working with immunity deficiency disorder.

Because if you have no immunity, you come up with measles, or
whatever. That strategic outlook is the immune system. If it doesn’t
exist, all small the things pop up,” Mr. Suleymanov said.”America,
unfortunately today from the strategic point of view, has much less
friends in the region than it had before,” Mr. Seyidov said. “That’s
why we would like to see more attention to the region, more strategic
vision to the region.””Unfortunately in the western world, especially
from Europe, we see existence of these double standards. I’m talking
about different approaches to the same kind of conflicts,” Mr. Seyidov
said. “Nobody even thinks about sanctions against Armenia that did
the same crime against a neighboring country.”Mr. Seyidov argued
that if Western nations continued to pick and choose which countries
were subject to international law, then aggressors would continue to
violate those laws without fear of retaliation.”If we are thinking
about normalizing relationships in the world, we should restore
international law.” Mr. Seyidov said. “We should implement the same
requirements for those who violated international law.Mr. Suleymanov
and Mr. Seyidov both stressed that U.S. allies in the region needed
reassurance that the U.S. would continue to provide support against
Armenia. The conflict has led to the deaths of tens of thousands of
people since fighting began in the late 1980s, and displaced more than
1 million, many of whom have been living as refugees for more than 20
years.”The bigger issue is if the United States is committed to its
friends, if it works with them to reinforce the partnerships. Then
they feel more secure and the discussions and conflicts are resolved
in a much more peaceful manner,” Mr. Suleymanov said.