Global Baku Forum: What alliances will be built in forging of modern int'l relations?

The 5th Global Baku Forum,  which kicked off in Baku on March 16, featured the session named “What alliances will be built in the forging of modern international relations?”.

The session moderated by former Deputy Prime Minister of Georgia Eka Tkeshelashvili discussed global and regional socio-political processes, Azertac reported.

Speakers at the session included former President of Bulgaria Petar Stoyanov, former Ecuadorian President Rosalia Arteaga, former Croatian President Ivo Josipovic, former French Minister of Finance Edmond Alphandery, former Romanian Prime Minister Petre Roman, Co-Founder and Chairman of the Board of Concordia Nicholas Logothetis and the Azerbaijani President`s Assistant for Public and Political Affairs Ali Hasanov.

Ali Hasanov noted that international organizations carry the main burden of determining key priorities of development of international relations, addressing complex and controversial global geopolitical processes and ensuring peace and stability in the world. “On the other hand, there is now a global trend for military and political grouping, with the new perception of the role of the world`s leading international organizations, particularly the United Nations, in the international relations system emerging.

According to observations, the UN`s attitude to global geopolitical processes, its controversial handling of conflicts that jeopardize international and regional security sparks ambiguous reaction of the world community. Regretfully, most of the UN`s resolutions and decisions lack the mandatory nature, and the organization took a double standard approach to the issue of punishment of aggressor countries, which trigger conflicts in different regions across the world.”

He said it is a well-known fact that influenced by some European states, the UN treats differently how its resolutions and decisions are implemented, which seriously harms the organization`s image.

 “Azerbaijan, which does not interfere with internal affairs of other countries and which is strictly guided by the norms and principles of international law, stands for the UN`s resolutions addressing conflicts in different parts of the world and for their soonest possible implementation. But the United Nations has not taken a principled approach to immediate fulfillment of its resolutions on the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, unlike in the case with Iraq whose punishment the UN once encouraged. The UN Security Council`s resolution on Libya was immediately executed, but the organization`s four Armenia-related resolutions have not been fulfilled for more than 20 years even though these resolutions reiterated inviolability of Azerbaijan`s territorial integrity, urged cessation of military operations and Armenia`s withdrawal from the occupied territories," he said.

“All these factors have necessitated a major reform and restructuring of the United Nations and its strategy. Many countries now see the fact that the veto power is used exclusively by five permanent members of the UN Security Council as being unjust, and are also convinced that, in general, criteria for permanent membership of the organization are unfair. On the other hand, any serious decision of the United Nations is adopted by consensus of the nine out of the 15 members of the Security Council, including five permanent members, which critically impedes flexibility and dynamism of the organization. The fact that not all the Security Council members have the veto power encourages the adoption of unfair decisions on some occasions. Azerbaijan, for its part, supports the idea of reforming the UN with the aim of solving conflicts, ensuring sustainable peace and stability in all regions of the world.”

Ali Hasanov added: “What happened in the past 25 years shows that “unipolarity” and “new world order” concepts are taken differently by states. Guided by their own interests, some want restoration of multipolarity and establishment of military and political blocks. A group of states believe that the current geopolitical processes will bring about the emergence of military and political alliances, marking a turning point in ensuring international peace and stability. The fact that military and political blocks in the multipolar world are controlling each other will allow to effectively maintain international balance.

The countries that stand for multipolarity prefer the UN to NATO as a major regulator of international relations. They believe that in a multipolar world, international relations will require a more active UN role and adjustment of provisions of the UN Charter to present realities. Challenges of the new time create a different international environment, which requires the improvement of UN mechanisms. This approach certainly does not satisfy the interests of the countries that support unipolarity as they are convinced that multipolarity may impede the establishment of global peace and encourage instability by causing conflicts on different grounds.

The Non-Aligned Movement, which Azerbaijan joined in 2011, is interested in building the new architecture of the world order based on equal partnership where no state or international organization can have any exclusive rights in building peace and stability. The Non-Aligned Movement, which backs a multipolar word concept, believes that states must not be divided into “the good” and “the bad”, that each of them must have national sovereignty and independence and pursue independent internal and foreign policies. Any state`s or military block`s maintaining long-term absolute leadership is impossible because different military and political powers have growing opportunities to influence geopolitical processes and the current unipolar system causes global problems, regional conflicts and disagreements, which may be tackled in a multipolar system of international relations.”