Turan Information Agency, Azerbaijani Opposition
 Tuesday


Aliev's journey from Warsaw to Istanbul

by Analytical Service Turan



Aliyev's tour began with a visit to Poland on June 26-28, and ended
with a dinner with President Erdogan and a conversation with US
Secretary of State, Tillerson, during an oil conference in Istanbul on
July 9-10.

In Poland, Aliyev actually announced a return to active pro-European
politics, somewhat even in a defiant tone, which until quite recently
could seriously disappoint Moscow. But today the information coming
from various capitals: from super-power to the countries barely
noticeable on world maps, show that the time of compromises between
East and West begins to replace the era of the last years of
confrontation in the space from Ukraine to Syria.

Important geopolitical players in the South Caucasus, the United
States and Russia, at the G-20 summit in Hamburg demonstrated to the
whole world the convergence of positions in Ukraine and Syria, which
are clear destabilizing factors of relations between the West and
Russia.

Perhaps the meeting between Trump and Putin was the most notable
informal agenda for the summit, which, at the time of the settlement
of an important geopolitical confrontation, unleashed a knot of issues
- combating climate warming and a free trade zone.

This key meeting, which satisfied both sides, creates prerequisites
for reaching agreement on the South Caucasus, where the closer
regional cooperation between Azerbaijan and Armenia with the European
Union and the achievement of a compromise peace between the two
belligerent states finding in the transaction between the Soviet past
and the European future are important regional themes.

Reports from Yerevan that Armenia is preparing to sign an agreement on
a comprehensive and expanded partnership with the consent of the
Kremlin suggest that the South Caucasus figured the US-Russian
dialogue. This agreement may be called a compromise, since it excludes
the wording on the goal of EU membership, but at the same time, it
lays the platform for association with this interstate organization.
The same agreement is being prepared with Azerbaijan, which, as
always, is more restrained in the issue of reaching a deal with the
EU. It is expected that both countries will sign agreements with the
EU in November in Brussels at the summit of the "Eastern Partnership".
The last established cooperation between the US and Russia creates
real chances for this. It should also be taken into account that
unlike Georgia, which always outstripped its Caucasian neighbors in
the European integration, Armenia and Azerbaijan became members of
various European unions and projects virtually simultaneously. This
was the case with membership in the Council of Europe, Partnership for
Peace, etc. Facts give grounds to say that both sides will conclude
long-awaited agreements with the EU in November, which will raise the
bar of relations to a new level of European integration.

These issues, as shown by the brief official report on the meeting
between Aliyev and Tillerson, were touched upon in Istanbul. The
Secretary of State, who took part in the G20 summit on the eve of the
meeting, and has information on Trump and Putin's agreements on a
range of issues, could more confidently talk with Aliyev about the
near future of his country's destiny, opening the corridor for
maneuvers in the framework of the latest agreements between the
presidents of the United States and Russia.

The meager and veiled information of the Aliyev administration on his
meeting with the Secretary of State, shows that the issue of
Azerbaijan's development based on a stable transaction from
authoritarianism to democracy was the key one. The silent reaction of
the United States to the last year's referendum in Azerbaijan, which
opened the way to intra-family continuity of power, is now being
continued in the Azerbaijani-American dialogue and increasingly points
to the fact that the issue of the 2018 elections with the planned
castling of Ilham and Mehriban Aliyevs becomes more realistic . But
this castling is closely tied to the commitment to reforms, of which
12 road economic maps and national human rights action plans, etc., of
which Washington has been mildly reminiscent recently, are an integral
part.

We talked about Aliyev's visit to Poland and Turkey, but we do not
know anything about his meetings between June 28 and July 8. However,
However, his one-to-one dinner with Erdogan, which plays an important
role in Azerbaijani affairs, shows that Aliyev was already ready by
this time for a talk with Tillerson in the atmosphere of the warming
the Turkish-American, American-Russian and Turkish-Russian relations.
This mutual agreement between the important participants of the
Caucasian process creates favorable conditions for the reform of
Azerbaijan, stuck in the midst of the ups and downs of its 25-year
post-Soviet autonomous existence. But, of course, the conversation
between Aliyev and the Uzbek delegation was not about it.