Asim Mollazade:"We did not expect Atkinson's report to be so unbiased"

Mr. Mollazade, you’ve just arrived form Strasburg. What can you say regarding passed David Atkinson’s report?

- Firstly, I’d like to note, that such debates on the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and Atkinson’s’ report itself carry the significant importance for Azerbaijan and for the conflict resolution. Secondly, this passed report is a result four-year efforts of the Azeri delegation in PACE. And thirdly, we managed to achieve that Armenia was called aggressor on the international arena, and it was stated that Nagorno-Karabakh is controlled by separatist forces. The Council of Europe – organization which protects the humanistic values. It’s important that we’ve informed the European and World community of the existing situation. The opinion of such an important organization like CE is can be decisive factor for other organizations which have more effective mechanisms for conflict settlement. The Council of Europe – political organization, which is not able to settle conflict itself, it doesn’t have special mechanisms like military forces, neither it has sufficient financial means for doing that. However, the CE’s influence as well as it’s opinion always played the significant role in world. They are being listened to.

But in Armenia they say that Atkinson’s report “smells oil”.

- The Armenian diplomacy is always trying to blame others for it’s diplomatic failures. I don’t agree with their point on “oil smell”. Mr. Atkinson is a principal man, who made a report based on the European values. And these values stipulate that one CE member can’t occupy the territory of another CE member creating the humanitarian problems. As a result of Armenian aggression we have one million Azeri refugees, and this is not acceptable by European standards. Mr. Atkinos was relying on these factors. Frankly speaking we didn’t’ expect this report to be so unbiased. Armenians were tying to prevent this report to be included into agenda. But the CE members didn’t buy on the Armenian tricks and adopted the fair resolution.

Do you mean that even Russian and French deputies, who traditionally support Armenia, didn’t vote against adoption of this resolution?

- Frankly speaking we were surprised by the fair position of Russian deputies. They spoke from the European positions and supported Atkinson’s report like French deputies did. But it should be mentioned, that few French deputies tried to support Armenian deputies, but eventually it couldn’t prevent report to be adopted. During four years we make out the clear position to assert our principals and we managed to gain the sympathy of European deputies. After this winter session it became clear to me, that Armenians are loosing its former influence over the international organization they had before. It happens due to the reinforcement of the Azeri diplomacy and understanding of Azeri positions by the international bodies. But we shouldn’t stop at this stage and have to continue to convict the Armenians in various international organizations.

What are the next steps that Azeri diplomacy should undertake?

- I have already mentioned that we have to expose Armenians and their aggression in different international organizations and, at the same time, strengthen our economy and army. The more information we will give to the world about Nagorno-Karabakh problem, the clearer its essence will be to the international political elite and public community.

By adopting the this resolution, at last, it became clear to all the Europeans, that it is a question of unprecedented violation of the whole international legislation system, question of occupation of Azerbaijani territory. European politics now see, that apart from the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenia has occupied 5 times bigger area of other Azerbaijani lands. And in this respect it becomes absolutely obvious, that Armenia is lying by saying that Nagorno-Karabakh has never been part of Azerbaijan. The issue is that Azerbaijan is recognized by all the states in the world, including European states, and its borders recognized as being the same as for the former AzSSR, i.e. with Nagorno-Karabakh. I believe this becomes obvious to the international community.

Is there a chance of new military operations in the region?

- The fact that the next day after adoption of the report, Armenia has broken the cease-fire, says that Armenians will do further provocations. I believe that new military operations are undesirable and that international community should give a clear message to Armenia with regards to this, and it should be the OSCE Minsk group in the first place. I do not consider their work as satisfactory, to be honest. Ten years of inactivity of this group have lead up the conflict to a blind alley. And now it is the time for them to make their presence felt just like PACE did. By the way, two of co-chairmen of the group, Russian and France, are member of CE and their delegates have supported Atkinson’s report. I believe, that PACE’s resolution will affect the activities of this group too.

On this PACE session you have been elected as a chairman of a subcommittee. Can you comment this please?

- Generally speaking, I should say that this session was very successful for Azerbaijani delegation. Naira Shahtahtinskaya and I have been elected to the senior posts in the organization, which implies the growing role of Azerbaijan in CE. I was elected as a head of the Middle East Subcommittee of CE Political Committee and Naira has been elected as a deputy chairman of PACE Monitoring Committee. The subcommittee I am leading is in charge of monitoring situation in the Middle East, preparations of the documents with the assessment of democratic processes and support of settlement of the conflict in Palestine. I consider this elections as a success for our delegation.

Today.Az