American-Azerbaijani Council Chairman: I doubt U.S. president will utter the word "genocide"

Do you expect progress in resolving the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in 2010?

It all depends on Armenia’s readiness to make certain compromises which it refused to do for the past years. This is very serious problem. A second problem is related to interests of regional and major powers. At this level, it is unclear whether interests of countries in the region will coincide (in this case, Russia, Turkey, the EU and the United States and to some extent, Iran).

In this case, if those interests coincide, and moreover, if the Armenian leadership receives some signals from all parties that have influence on the settlement of this conflict that there is no alternative solution to the conflict, the year 2010 might see some progress.

What do you mean by the word "progress" - a convergence of views of the parties or a complete solution to the conflict?

Of course, I mean not a complete resolution to this conflict, but some advances which can stabilize the situation and prevent confrontation and hostilities from resuming. Some progress is possible in this regard. We cannot talk about full conflict resolution yet, because the conflict, as I said, is tied at various levels – Armenians’ unwillingness to compromise, setting new conditions and little outside influence on Armenia. Russia could provide such an influence on Armenia, but it is unclear whether it is interested in this or not.

In addition, development of U.S.-Russian and Turkish-Russian relations play a certain role in this respect. Much will depend on what issues these countries will build strategic partnership between, or, on the contrary, many issues will remain unresolved. In other words, possible progress in resolving the Karabakh conflict in 2010 will depend on a degree of cooperation between countries that have an interest in this region.

Last year, Azerbaijan presented a protest note to the U.S. to protest U.S. Congress aid to the Nagorno-Karabakh separatists. However, no official response to the note has been provided yet. Is there any political background in this regard? What are your views on such a state of affairs?

There has always been a political background, because we are talking about activities of politically active Armenian lobby in the U.S., especially in states such as Massachusetts, California, New Jersey and Michigan. For many years, congressmen from these states have carried out various kinds of anti-Azerbaijani resolutions and decisions, including in the legislative field. One of them is  aid to Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh.

In this case, this is a matter of domestic American politics, related to elections, donations to the election fund by certain congressmen, in which, as we all know, the Armenian diaspora has always succeeded. This is the main reason. I believe this does not reflect U.S. interests in the region. Moreover, it contradicts American interests to some extent. But, as Tip O'Neal, well-known chairman of the Congress under the Ronald Reagan administration once said “All politics is local.”

So, in this case, assistance to the Karabakh Armenians is based on this famous saying. That is, the local election campaign dictates these actions, in which Azerbaijan calls for justice and complying with norms of international law, since the United States recognizes territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, including Nagorno-Karabakh.

Nevertheless, such actions do not affect promoting mutual trust between Azerbaijan and the United States despite the United States has assumed the mission of an impartial mediator in this conflict. Such negative cases occur not upon the will of the American government and American interests, but are pure demonstration of the above phrase “All politics is local.”

Many observers, evaluating prospects of Armenian-Azerbaijani and Armenian-Turkish reconciliation, say the move the U.S. president will make this April to answer the Armenian voters, whom he had promised to recognize the so-called "Armenian genocide" before the presidential elections, will be of a landmark nature. In your opinion, what Obama will do this year?

Each year, it is suggested that probability of recognition is high. After Obama was elected president, Armenians stated that he, as a new president, should keep his promise. But on 24 April last year, he chose an original way, using the word, which the Armenians in their own language call "genocide", while not uttering the word "genocide" in English.

Will he this time resort to the same method to satisfy Armenians? I doubt that he will utter the word "genocide", given the present state of relations between the U.S. and Turkey, Ankara's role in the international arena, as well as several other factors. So, I think that Obama is unlikely to say the word "genocide" in English. He may repeat it in Armenian as he already did it last year.