Oxu.Az interviews Adil Baguirov, doctor of political science, co-founder and member of the directors’ board of the US Azeris Network and Karabakh Foundation (the United States).

The US congressmen have recently passed a bill envisaging expansion of military cooperation with Azerbaijan. How would assess the significance of this decision?

This bill – S.2277-currently exists only within the US Senate and has 26 sponsors (senators, supporting the bill). It will have to gain at least 51 votes of 100 possible after which a similar procedure will take place within the US House of Representatives where the votes of the majority of 435 congressmen are needed. Only in this case it can become a bill which will be submitted for signing to President Obama and become a law.

USAN has been actively urging the US Congress to raise the military component of cooperation with Azerbaijan-from raising military support and military exercise to full lifting all bans (Amendment 907) and free trade and supplies of necessary ammunition. It is regretful that this happens in a different context namely the confrontation of the United States, EU and Ukraine with Russia. The manner is that Azerbaijan needs to improve its armed forces not to target the indicated countries but to ensure its sovereignty and restore its territorial integrity.

The authors of the bill in the US Senate are aware of this, which is why they do not attribute Azerbaijan to a certain anti-Russian axe. This is clear, for example, when they request ‘the status of a major non-NATO ally’ for Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia but rather modest ‘expansion of trainings for armed forces, assistance and military cooperation’ for Azerbaijan and other countries. That is Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia are set in one row and Azerbaijan, along with pro-Russian Serbia and Montenegro (by the way, both countries are the allies of Azerbaijan recognizing the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan) and others, as Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo are set in another row.
At least two aspects are important here: first, Armenia was not included into the list of countries in the bill. That is, 27 senators including most pro-Armenian ones, realized and recognized the essence of the criminal regime that controls Armenia.

Second, Azerbaijan, just as, for example, Serbia or Montenegro, can continue profitable military cooperation with both Russia and CSTO and the United States and NATO. In other words, Azerbaijan cannot only smooth the gap in military cooperation between Russia and Armenia but also raise the gap in the military assistance of the United States to Armenia and Azerbaijan. Since 1992, the United States has ensured free military assistance to Armenia of about $250m and Azerbaijan of about $350m.

This gap will start to increase if such a bill is enacted.

What is your vision of the Azerbaijani-American relations under the new US ambassador to Baku R.Sekuta, who has recently been nominated by the White House?

As an ambassador, Cekuta will likely remain a technocrat just like throughout his whole diplomatic career. He will likely focus on economic, especially energy relations between the United States and Azerbaijan. Though the two other principles of security and democracy so important for the US priority in relations with the post-USSR states will not be removed, simply in the next three years energy cooperation will be a basis for relations as a more pragmatic principle.
It should also be noted that Robert Cekuta is a high-ranking diplomat and state official, unlike Mr.Richard Mills Jr., whom President Obama has recently nominated for the position of an ambassador to Armenia. In other words, the attitude and respect to Azerbaijan is higher than towards Armenia. This tendency started from Bryza’s appointment as an ambassador, continued with Morningstar and got strongly fixed with Cekuta’s nomination.

The U.S. Helsinki Commission proposes to include the separatist leadership of Lugansk and Donetsk “republics” in the list of terrorist organizations. What are the chances at this point to raise the question of recognizing “NKR” as a terrorist formation? 

Much is possible in the United States but this requires huge work. As a proof of my words I have to remind that the United States, on the initiative of the US Azerbaijanis Network, for the first time in the world recognized 31 March (Day of Genocide of Azerbaijanis in Nevada in 2009-2011) and Khojaly (beginning from 2010, already in 15 states).
Also, the United States was the first country who made the first precedent in world jurisprudence who in 2004-2005 condemned the Armenian military, lieutenant Vigen Patatanian for, I quote, ‘the crime against humanity’ against Azerbaijani citizens in the Karabakh region of the country. He was further blacklisted and deported as a foreign citizen. The United States also forced Armenian national Andreasyan in 1999 to admit that Karabakh is an integral region of Azerbaijan. It has already been many years that the State Department recognizes in written that Armenia violates military CFE Treaty and illegally ‘keeps its army and armored hardware in the area of Azerbaijan without its permission’.  The United States did it on their own initiative without lobbying by Azerbaijan or Azerbaijani organizations.
Large –scale awareness campaigns about Khojaly were held in the United States. USAN has been holding protest actions outside the Armenian embassy to Washington, other organizations hold actions in memory of Khojaly in New York, Houston and Los Angeles for already about 10 years. I have not heard about such a number of events in Moscow, Tehran, Dubai, London, Paris, Berlin, Rome  and other cities and countries.

All the same, little has been done in Azerbaijan in the academic and judicial sense to bring Armenia to responsibility. Only the Foreign Ministry of Azerbaijan has attained conduction of several prestigious researches by famous British lawyer M.Show but this is too little. Why there are no numerous volumes of serious studies by lawyers and serious historians (graduates of the leading western universities) in English, French and German languages? It has been already about ten years that high-ranking Azerbaijani officials, I quote, ‘view the issue of filing a lawsuit against the authorities of Armenia in the International Court in Hague’ (by the way, this is practically impossible due to the procedural rules of the International Law in Hague).

Therefore, blacklisting B.Saakyans by the United States is quite real and possible but to this end Azerbaijan must work harder rejecting the Soviet-Azerbaijani vision, measuring everything through PR and public events (for example, forums), invest more in foreign academic studies, serious publications in foreign media, frequently updated quality websites and blogs, receiving education at the leading universities of the world, raise the number of Azerbaijani experts in the sphere of history, sociology, jurisprudence, humanitarian law, even architecture, archaeology, linguistics and literature studies.

The United States, especially after events in Ukraine, states the intention to play a more active role in conflict settlement. Meanwhile, it is known that Russia plays the main role in the negotiation process. Can the differences between Washington and Moscow on Ukraine damage the Karabakh settlement or the developments in Ukraine will only whip up the peace process?

Developments around Azerbaijan and Armenia are temporary. The times of differences, just like accords, between world powers come and go. Everything in world politics is cyclic and changeable. But for Azerbaijan and Azerbaijani people there is one constant – our Karabakh region. All global political processes must be traced and analyzed but one must not be dependent in such an important issue. It is wrong to look back and wait for the assistance of stronger states. It will be impossible to coordinate actions 100%.

Azerbaijan must strengthen sharply in the political, information, economic, financial, energy, food and agricultural, academic and, certainly, the military sphere to achieve maximum through minimum.

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