Azerbaijani MP: Hillary Clinton may advance her own proposals on Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

How do you assess the U.S.-Azerbaijan relations, in particular, recent Baku trip of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton?

I would call the state of the Azerbaijani-US relationship specific. They have evolved in difficult circumstances. For many years, international experts believed that the United States links its  main regional priorities in the Caucasus with Azerbaijan. But in recent years, they have noted changes in this viewpoint. The United States began its actions in the region with the realization of economic interests, and then gradually shifted to security, politics and geopolitics. All this brought the relations between our countries to a very high level. Azerbaijan built good links with the U.S. through cooperation in the Caspian Sea. America has been active economically, too. This lasted until 2008. In this period we have had some differences with the United States. For example, regarding its assistance to the break-away Nagorno-Karabakh. But at the same time, America continued to help Azerbaijan in solving many problems.

Admittedly, noticeable changes have occurred since 2008. Azerbaijan pinned great hopes on the Obama administration. Azerbaijan hoped that America will make great efforts to resolve the territorial conflicts in South Caucasus. But America's priorities changed and the conflict in South Ossetia proved this.

At that time, a group of Azerbaijani MPs were in the U.S. and at the meetings in the State Department we asked openly: "You know that we are a secular country, we are cooperating with the United States, we have not joined any anti-American organization, we fight against terror together with you while your citizens raise funds to aid Armenia worth nearly $ 2 billion. At the same time you know that Armenia actively cooperates with Iran in defense issues. Why then Armenia receives more help from America than Azerbaijan? " They said: "The fact is that Obama is playing a game inside the U.S. to keep balance of interests between Democrats and Republicans."

In my opinion, Clinton’s recent visit to Baku should be considered very important. And I would like very much Barack Obama to visit Azerbaijan. I believe in it because there is an opinion in Azerbaijan that leaders of great powers visit countries critical to them. Thus, they show them their support.

And, of course, the lastest visit will have a major impact on the level of relations between our countries. We have high expectations from this, in particular, balanced and more impartial understanding of Azerbaijan's realities. Otherwise, America will lose the Caucasus. History does have such examples.

In your opinion, can Hillary Clinton influence acceleration of negotiations between Armenia and Azerbaijan? Will this visit influence solution to the Karabakh problem?

I do not believe that the visit by Secretary of State primarily focused on the Nagorno-Karabakh process. In fact, the West and America have developed a peace plan which calls for resuming Turkish-Armenian relations and opening borders between Turkey and Armenia. But Azerbaijan took principled stand in this case and showed that it will not work to change status quo in the region without taking into account Azerbaijan’s interests.

Because it would lead to a breakdown of all system built in the South Caucasus after independence. Consequently, the West will lose all opportunities for economic benefits in the region. So I think that after the visit, Clinton will try to sponsor some other solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, because previous peace initiatives had gone into the archive. Now the U.S. can take some action to move forward the slow down the peace process.


/Day.Az/