Azerbaijan Presidential Administration official: Azerbaijan successfully implemented domestic and foreign policy priorities in 2009

Mr. Hasanov, is it possible to consider 2009 a significant year for Azerbaijan?  

The year 2009 was rich with important events for Azerbaijan, our priorities in domestic and foreign policy were successfully implemented. Strengthening our statehood, continuing political, economic, legal reforms, intensifying social and economic development, improving human welfare, accelerating democratization process, promoting international prestige of Azerbaijan, strengthening efforts to resolve the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, establishing the army, and protecting and preserving Azerbaijan's cultural heritage, national and spiritual values and other important issues were the main directions of policy pursued by the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev.

It is possible to surely say that the achievements made in all spheres in previous years further strengthened, intensive and comprehensive development of Azerbaijan was ensured as a result of thoughtful, pragmatic policy conducted by the Head of State.

For already several years, Azerbaijan has been demonstrating high results over the economic development indicators. Were the consequences of the global economic crisis noticed in Azerbaijan? Because already in the first days of the crisis, experts made pessimistic forecasts, suppositions with regards to appearance of serious problems in the country.

First I want to say that the President of Azerbaijan stated that the transitional period in the economy completed in Azerbaijan. This is the end of an important stage in the history of economic development of Azerbaijan, the reality indicating the transition to a new qualitative level.

For already several years, Azerbaijan has been amongst the leading countries worldwide for economic development. The successes in the development of the market economy, liberalization of business activities, diversification of energy resources, economic ramifications, development of non-oil sector, most importantly the accurate economic policy by the President of Azerbaijan are the factors contributing to the completion of the transition stage.

In 2009 the economic crisis became a serious problem all over the world, and significantly affected some countries, even the developed states. In this sense, 2009 was a year of testing for the Azerbaijani government and president. I agree with you that in the beginning of the crisis, many economists supposed that Azerbaijan will face serious consequences. It is impossible to say that the crisis could not have any impact on Azerbaijan.

However, thanks to measures taken in time, a flexible reaction by the government to changes, this process was not felt in our country, problems were not recorded, but vice-versa Azerbaijan attracted attention as a country that demonstrates dynamic development indicators.

I noted that credible economic and financial organizations worldwide predicted 7-8 percent real GDP growth in Azerbaijan in 2009. As a result of 11 months of this year, GDP growth in Azerbaijan was 9 percent. Azerbaijan's success in the economic sphere is more clearly visible in the comparison.

For instance, economic growth was not recorded in most developed countries this year. Also from the CIS countries, the GDP in Russia fell by 14 percent, Armenia - 15 percent, Ukraine - 29 percent. Although economic problems led to deterioration of living standards of people in most countries, real growth was recorded in Azerbaijan in this regard. As a result of 9 months of this year, real incomes increased by 10 percent, the average monthly salary - 15 percent. The inflation rate as of the end of the year is projected at 1.5 percent.  

During the crisis around the world, ambitious infrastructure projects, targeted social assistance continued in Azerbaijan. In addition, some social benefits have been increased recently. Problems did not appear with the modernization of cities and districts, the construction and rehabilitation of schools, medical institutions and other social facilities in accordance with modern standards. Our strategic currency reserves have increased, exceeding $20 billion. Economic reforms, measures taken to liberalize business environment, and the results attract the attention of influential world economic and financial organizations.

In the 2009-2010 Global Competitiveness Report prepared by the World Economic Forum, Azerbaijan improved by 18 stages, ranking 51st amongst 133 countries, and topping amongst the CIS countries. Azerbaijan ranked 38th amongst 183 countries in the rating for favorable business situation, prepared by the World Bank and International Finance Corporation.

As seen, pessimistic forecasts were not justified. In some countries economic stagnation deteriorated the people's social conditions and caused serious discontent. It is not accidental that even on the internet auctions there were jokes that some countries were put up to auction. The results of the poll conducted by the famous US-based Gallup organization showed that 77 percent of the Azerbaijanis are satisfied with the activity of the authorities.

Speaking about Azerbaijan's foreign policy in 2009, first of all the process of settlement of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict draws attention. The negotiations were intensified, OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs paid a number of visits to the region, some points of the agreement are being discussed in the media. Can we consider this year successful in terms of the settlement of the conflict?

Solution to Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict basing on the norms of the international law, restoration of Azerbaijan's territorial integrity are the priorities of the Azerbaijani President's foreign policy. The negotiations have not produced results because of Armenia's destructive position contradicting the international law. Despite this, due to the efforts of the Azerbaijani diplomacy, serious achievements have been gained in informing the world community about the truths on Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Armenia's aggressive policy was admitted on various levels, famous international organizations, most states expressed their support for Azerbaijan's territorial integrity.

After Moscow Declaration was signed in November, 2008, the process of negotiations intensified, a number of meetings were held between Azerbaijani and Armenian president, foreign ministers. OSCE Minsk Group cop-chairs paid a number of visits to the region. The heads of the co-chairing states made efforts for the settlement of the conflict. Both the conflicting parties and the co-chairs gave information about the details of the process of settlement. Reports spread that progress was made in the process of negotiations, a number of serious points were coordinated. But the reality is that the conflict remains unsolved, since Armenia has not backtracked from its position.

The world community, OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs realize well that Azerbaijan is right in the settlement of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. It is intolerable that in the 20th century one of the members of the Council of Europe occupied 20 percent of the territory of another member, over one million of refugees and displaces persons are obliged to live in miserable conditions. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has stated that Azerbaijan does not intend to tolerate the status quo that favors Armenia. Azerbaijan is a developed country has great economic potential and strong army. The money allocated to the Azerbaijani Armed Forces recently has been close to Armenia's budget, Ministry of Defense Industry has been established and weapons are being produced. Why should we tolerate the occupation of our territories while the international law, military power supports Azerbaijan? Prior to the recent meeting with Armenian President, Azerbaijani President made a severe statement taking into account these realities.

It is the achievement of Azerbaijan towards the settlement of Nagorno-Karabakh problem that the negotiations are in line with Azerbaijan's interests, Armenia has given up its previous rhetoric, the super powers have increased their efforts for the settlement of the conflict, the international community has admitted that Azerbaijan is right and the fair solution to the conflict has become urgent. We consider that higher results will be achieved in the forthcoming years.

An important event happened in the life of Nagorno-Karabakh's Azerbaijani community. As you know, Public Union of Nagorno-Karabakh's Azerbaijani Community was established. We think that the Azerbaijani community will be more active in the coming years and contribute to the solution to the conflict in line with our national interests.

Turkey was also active in a certain stage of the process of negotiations. Efforts were made to reopen Turkey-Armenia borders and restore the diplomatic relations. It caused serious discontent of the Azerbaijanis. How can this issue influence the solution to Nagorno-Karabakh conflict?

Turkey is the closest ally, friend and brother of Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan certainly wants Turkey's role and efforts in the settlement of the conflict to increase. Turkey has supported Azerbaijan since the conflict began. Turkey closed the borders after the Armenians occupied Kalbajar in 1993. During these years Turkey and Azerbaijan have supported each other, the interests of the two countries were taken into account in the solution of all problems. It is natural that the initiatives for opening the border with Armenia unless the conflict is solved, occupation has ended, Azerbaijan's territorial integrity is restored, caused concern of Azerbaijani and Turkish public. Azerbaijani public considers that the opening of borders before the solution of the conflict will strengthen Armenia, revive the economy of the hostile country, Yerevan will not be interested in the compromise and become more severe.

Has Armenia given up its claims against Turkey? Is there a guarantee that Armenians will not raise "genocide", territorial and other claims? As seen, the opening of the borders does meet the interests of Azerbaijan, or Turkey. Azerbaijani and Turkish public does not want to believe that the protocols signed in Zurich on October 10 will result in actions for Turkey-Armenia approximation.

Could the measures taken toward the development of civil society in 2009 be considered satisfactory?

Azerbaijani legislation completely meets the international standards and laws are regularly improved taken into account the world developments. There is a necessary environment for free activity of the civil society institutions. Recent socio-economic development, deepening of democracy in the society's life and innovation of public consciousness made necessary the forming of new relations in the society and changes in the activity of civil society institutions. The harmful elements of the political activity such as radicalism and destructiveness were replaced by the modern methods of struggle because there was no social need. Naturally supporters of radical methods left the political palette and constructive supporters of civil methods of struggle replaced them. The state has to form an environment for normal political struggle. The society decides who will stay or who will leave the politics. The New Azerbaijan Party played an important role in defending and securing independence of Azerbaijan and in the comprehensive development of the country, it meets all demands of the society, is always innovated uniting well-known intellectuals of Azerbaijan and young people who live with a goal to build and create and therefore our people entrust to this party. Undoubtedly YAP will secure its leadership and make unexampled contributions to the sustainable development of Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijan took important measures toward the freedoms of speech and information, the development of mass media and non-governmental sector in recent years. It is important to solve the issues like coordinating of the activity of non-governmental organizations with the requirements of contemporary period, raising of their role in the civil society, increasing of civil initiatives, as well as improvement of mass media as one of the main attributes of democracy and means providing transparency in the society, development of freedoms of speech and information. Just taken into account these requirements, President Ilham Aliyev approved the Concept of Support to Non-Governmental Organizations in 2007 and the Concept of Government's Support to Mass Media in 2008. The Council of Government's Support to Non-Governmental Organizations under the President of Azerbaijan and the Fund of Government's Support to Mass Media established according to these documents started to implement the government's support to the NGOs and mass media organizations. 11 million manat were directed to funding of NGO and media projects to improve their activities, taken into consideration the resources allocated from the state budget 2010.

While establishing these institutions, some local and foreign organizations claimed that funding of NGOs and media organizations by the government will negatively impact on their independence.

Such ideas are groundless. If there is a problem in the development of civil society institutions, why the government shouldn't attach attention to the solution of this problem? It should be considered that the newly-established institutions don't value the organization, but their projects and allocate resources for the implementation of these projects. The European countries spend millions of dollars to the development of NGO sector from the state budget. Austria's government allocated 13 millions euro subsidy for the press in 2009. Sweden's subsidy was larger than it. We are learning and implementing best experiences of the developing countries. Our goal is to develop the civil society and to create maximum conditions for the development of democratic institutions.

Despite multiple measures taken for the development of civil society, some foreign organizations claim that situation of freedom of speech in Azerbaijan is worsening giving an example as the arrest of journalists.

Unfortunately some foreign organizations have tendentious attitude against Azerbaijan. They see only problems in Azerbaijan and if there is no problem, they try to thing out it. For example, Reporters without Borders is spreading preconceived statements against Azerbaijan every day. It didn't report about the measures taken by Azerbaijan for the development of freedoms of speech and information and development of mass media. Freedom House is also making regular preconceived statements not based on the facts. The organization's Map of Freedom showed the integral part of Azerbaijan - Nagorno Karabakh as a joint territory of Azerbaijan and Armenia. It can not be accepted normally while South Ossetia and Abkhazia are shown as the territory of Georgia and Transdniestrian - as the territory of Moldova, but Nagorno-Karabakh was described as the joint territory. The influential international organizations, world countries recognize Nagorno-Karabakh as the territory of Azerbaijan and support the territorial integrity of the country. It proves that Freedom House doesn't take into consideration this reality because it behaves tendentiously and serves the Armenians' interests only. It is unfair to show Armenia, which violates human rights, shooting peaceful demonstrators and forcing people to leave the country, as "partly free", but Azerbaijan as "non-free" country.

Today more than 4 000 press organizations were registered by the Justice Ministry of Azerbaijan. The newspapers are free from value-added tax, the government allocate resources from the state budget for its development and takes measures for social protection of the journalists. Why those organizations don't speak about that?

Of course, Azerbaijani journalism is not in the ideal situation. There is abuse of useful conditions created for the freedom of media. The cases of poor technical basis and professional skills, violation of Azerbaijani law and journalist's professional ethics are the realities of nowadays. Offended citizens, intellectuals, officials and businessmen go to law, which leads to imposing sanctions against the journalists. The draft law on decriminalization and defamation of the journalistic activity is under the discussion now and measures are taken for prevention of negative cases in this field. The Fund of Government's Support to Mass Media, Press Council, OSCE, Council of Europe are carrying out multiple projects to improve journalists' professional skills and activity of media, strengthen its material and technical basis, enhancing cooperation between the media organizations and government agencies, regulation of the right to get information by the legislation and other directions. The sustainability and effectiveness of the measures creates confidence that existed negative cases will be minimized or lifted completely. Just after that the defamation law can be adopted.

I have to add that, recently there were demands to release the journalists who were sentenced for concrete criminal case. There is no mechanism for releasing from imprisonment for social or professional status in Azerbaijani legislation. If there is a controversial court decision, they can dispute it in higher instances or at the European Court of Human Rights at last.

What remarkable events did the year 2009 see?

March 18 Referendum on amendments and additions to the Constitution of Azerbaijan can be noted as one of the remarkable events of 2009. The Constitutional reforms became a political act important for sovereignty, democratic and economic development of Azerbaijani people and creating useful guarantee for the development of social, economic, political and legal reforms in their new phase. The novelties improved many norms of Constitution from the point of legal view, increased the government's responsibility in securing of human right and freedoms and caused new commitments for it. The referendum was also an indication of high confidence of the Azerbaijani people to the President and his activity. It should be noted that, not only elections and multiple opinion polls, but also independent researches proved that the President of Azerbaijan is supported by the most part of the people. "The Right to Rule" by Political Science Professor of the Portland State University Bruce Gilley analysis showed that Azerbaijan secured ninth place among 72 countries of the world for indication of legitimacy of the government, 21st - in the Central and Eastern Europe, and takes premier place among the CIS countries, running up behind only several developed countries.

One of the important events of this year was municipal election on December 23. It is third municipal election in Azerbaijan and both local and foreign observers confirmed that it was held in the conditions of democracy and high voter turnout. The Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe noted the high organizing quality of the elections, non-existence of serious law violations and training of election commissions as positive cases, as well as there were recommendations about the increase of interests to the municipal elections, improvement of ballots and election campaign. The municipal elections should be characterized as an appearance of democracy and high election culture, as well as next step taken toward the improvement of election experience in Azerbaijan.

In 2009, Baku was declared the Islamic Culture Capital, which included international conference of the ministers of culture of the Islamic countries, ISESCO week, cultural days of nine Islamic countries, International Mugham Festival and other events held in Baku.

Other important event was the 9th summit of the leaders of Turkic-speaking countries in Nakhchivan. For the first time, the Turkic-speaking leaders gathered outside the capital city. It was an appearance of the confidence showed by the friendly countries to Azerbaijan, as well as an indication of Azerbaijan's influence at the international arena and among the Turkic-speaking countries. The summit was remarkable with its important contribution to the integration between the Turkic-speaking countries and with its important decisions as well.

We can say surely that independent Azerbaijan left an important page of its development history behind. It strengthened statehood and formed stable, democratic political system, developed rapidly and became fully-legitimate and influential member of the world community. The strategy of national development founded by national leader Heydar Aliyev was successfully developed by the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev in accordance with the requirements of contemporary period. President Ilham Aliyev considers the civil society-building and democratization as the fundamental term of our development and his policy created trusty guarantee for the citizens to fully enjoy with their rights and freedoms. The macroeconomic stability, strong economic basis, large financial resources, developing human resources created by the economic doctrine of the Head of State, are the main conditions for rapid movement toward the future targets.

/Trend News/