Azeri pundit calls for suspending western pipeline to resolve Karabakh
Yeni Musavat, Baku
24 Jul 06
Excerpt from Cavid Turan’s report by Azerbaijani newspaper Yeni Musavat
on 24 July headlined "The Qabala radar station and Baku-Ceyhan should
be closed" and subheaded "Vafa Quluzada says that this should be
done to liberate Karabakh and call the enemy by its name" and also
subheaded "Leyla Aliyeva says that the reason why Armenia is not
called an aggressor is related to historic factors"
Efforts are being made again to make the Azerbaijani and Armenian
leaders meet after another round of unproductive peace talks. It
causes concern that the co-chairmen are now focusing on persuading
Azerbaijan to make concessions to satisfy Armenia.
[Passage omitted: UN resolutions on Armenia’s withdrawal from Azeri
lands]
Political analyst Vafa Quluzada believes that the reason why the
international community does not call Armenia by its name [of an
aggressor] should not be related to the foreign policy flaw of the
Azerbaijani government.
"They will not recognize Armenia as an aggressor no matter what Baku
does," Quluzada said. He mentioned the support of the entire West for
Israel in the Middle East crisis and added that the West sometimes
speaks about human rights abuses and "excessive violence".
"Azerbaijan is a small country. The West does not want to spoil
relations with Russia because of this small country. We should
remember that the West is interested in Azerbaijan as a strategic
place only. Our country will be of no importance to the West after
it sucks dry our oil and gas," Quluzada said.
He said another reason why Armenia is not properly dealt with is
religion. The enemy is Christian and therefore supported.
"On the other hand, Russia incited Armenia to fight us. Thus, Russia’s
being part of the Christian world gives Armenia another advantage."
The political analyst believes that Azerbaijan must be capable
of influencing the West. "Azerbaijan must establish a mighty and
professional army and set specific terms to the enemy. It should
declare that it will suspend the Ba ku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline if
the Azerbaijani territories are not liberated. Maybe then, the West
will force Armenia to implement the UN resolutions. If we become a
developed country, we can close down Russia’s Qabala radar station
[in northwestern Azerbaijan] and suspend oil supplies to the West
to have the enemy labelled as an aggressor and withdrawn from our
territories. But Azerbaijan must have capabilities to do it. We must
spend oil money to develop the non-oil sector so that we can dictate
our position in future."
[Passage omitted: another less-known political analyst on Karabakh]