AZERBAIJAN "WILL NEVER AGREE" TO ARMENIA’S PARTICIPATION IN REGIONAL PROJECTS
By M. Alkhazashvili
Translated by Diana Dundua
The Messenger, Georgia
April 18 2007
President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev recently stated Azerbaijan would
never agree to Armenia’s participation in regional projects.
"We will never agree to Armenia’s participation in regional projects.
The country’s occupational and aggressive policy towards neighbouring
states has caused its own isolation," declared Aliyev, as quoted in
the newspaper 24 Saati.
According to Azerbaijan, they have already applied to the EU and
other financial institutions to drum up financial support for
the Kars-Akhalkalaki railway project but they were met with some
resistance. They say the difficulties weren’t economic in nature but
political. Pro-Armenian forces and the Armenian lobby was applying
pressure to the international financial institutions, azrebaijan
claims.
The Azeri president stated that the same organizations did not decline
giving money to construct the oil and the natural gas pipelines
that also bypassed Armenia because they were in great need of energy
carriers.