Ilham Aliyev: Azerbaijan helped to improve relations between Russia and Turkey

Azerbaijan is interested in stable relations between its neighbors, so it made every possible effort to resolve the political conflict between Russia and Turkey last year, President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev said yesterday during the round table "Hidden Problems of Eurasia" at the Munich Security Conference, the head of the European Office of Vestnik Kavkaza Orkhan Sattarov reports.

Azerbaijan has great relations with Iran, Russia and Turkey. "These relations are based on mutual respect, non-interference in the internal affairs of each other and pragmatism of our national interests. That is why the worst scenario for Azerbaijan is when something bad happens between our neighbors, as it happened in 2008 during, for example, the Russian-Georgian war, or during the incident with the downed Russian plane. We saw it as a serious threat to regional stability," he said.

In connection with this Azerbaijan made every possible efforts to help its neighbors, Russia and Turkey, to find a way out of this crisis. "It is well known that Azerbaijan was one of the countries that helped to improve relations between Russia and Turkey. In any case, it doesn't matter how close we are with one country or another, we are always guided by the main principles of international law. It's necessary to respect the international law. Those who violate it are wrong, and we always talk about this. We support the territorial integrity of all countries. We also suffered from the violation of territorial integrity - so this issue is very important for us," he stressed.

"On the other hand, we look at what can be done to reduce the risks. The Russian-Turkish crisis was a serious geopolitical risk, risk to all the neighbors. In addition, those are two of our main economic partners. So if we can help them to overcome these difficulties, I think we deserve some trust. I also want to say that Azerbaijan's role as a factor of stability is recognized by the international community more and more," he added.

Azerbaijani President expressed confidence that leaders of Russia and Turkey, after evaluation the situation, made a correct and wise decision. "This situation couldn't last for too long, because if the conflict continue, the consequences would have been completely unpredictable, because the tension was really high. I spoke with President Erdogan and President Putin. I know that President Nursultan Nazarbayev was an active mediator and has achieved great success in this. Of course, I personally know how hard it was for them to achieve the normalization. The fact that it happened shows that these politicians are guided by pragmatism, rather than emotions, which should never be a factor when you are the president, because if are guided by emotions, you will not achieve any success, and will only create chaos in your country or the region," he concluded.