TODAY.AZ / Politics

Ambassador Khazar Ibrahim: Azerbaijan-NATO partnership strengthened and deepened, passing long way of development

24 May 2011 [15:31] - TODAY.AZ
Interview with Ambassador Khazar Ibrahim, head of the Azerbaijani representation to NATO.
How do you characterize current Azerbaijan-NATO partnership?

I characterize it as a dynamic and multilateral partnership based on the mutual interests. Since 1994 Azerbaijan-NATO partnership has strengthened and deepened in content passing long way of development. The mechanisms like Individual Partnership Action Plan and Planning and Review Process are widely used and an intensive work is done towards the political dialogue, operations and reforms. Guided by the principle of indivisible security, Azerbaijan intensively contributes to the NATO operations. In its turn, NATO gives special importance to the partnership after the last summit and meeting of the foreign ministers. There is an interesting fact that pragmatism, which is a priority of the new partnership documents, has been taken as one of the basic criterions since the beginning of Azerbaijan-NATO cooperation and became an appearance of right strategy.

Will discussions concerning Azerbaijan be held within the framework of the session of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly on May 27-30? Some parliamentarians have said they will raise the issue of killing Fariz Badalov.

The parliament criterion is important in improving NATO-Azerbaijan partnership. Being associate member of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, the Azerbaijani parliament takes an active part in the work of the organization and has even hosted some events of the Parliamentary Assembly. For example, our country hosted Rose-Roth seminar of the Parliamentary Assembly in 2004 and 2008. It should be noted that according to the rules, Azerbaijani parliament, as an independent branch of the government and legislative body, is directly realizing cooperation with the NATO Parliamentary Assembly.

Does Azerbaijan plan to increase its military contingent in Afghanistan?

Azerbaijan actively contributes to the efforts of the international community on Afghanistan. Azerbaijan is one of the first partner countries which joined the ISAF operations and our contribution to the operations has been increased for several times in recent years. For the last time Azerbaijan sent military doctors and field engineers in 2010.

It is needed to take into consideration that the main priority of international community and NATO in current period on Afghanistan is to give training to this country’s citizens. Concerning it, in addition to contributions on military force, Azerbaijan organizes trainings and courses in different spheres to Afghanistan’s civil and military servicemen, as well as cooperates in humanitarian mine clearance sphere. Azerbaijani Diplomatic Academy is one of the activists on organizing courses for the Afghanistan’s citizens and it organizes the “2nd Baku Course on Good Governance: Managing Transitions” for the Afghanistan’s listeners.

How do you assess NATO’s military operations in Libya?

Touching the international legal aspect of the problem, we need to note that the operation is held on the basis of the UN Security Council’s resolution. As the UN member, we note the necessity of fulfillment of the Security Council’s resolutions and the importance of fulfillment of all UN SC resolutions with similar will and loyalty.


/APA/
URL: http://www.today.az/news/politics/86792.html

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