Interviewed by Jamila Alekperova, Baku. Specially for Vestnik Kavkaza
Member of the Committee on Foreign Relations and Inter-parliamentary Relations of the Azerbaijani Parliament, political scientist Rasim Musabeyov, shared with "Vestnik Kavkaza" his vision of Russian-Azerbaijani relations.
- What is the role of Russia in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict?
- Azerbaijan inherited this conflict from the Soviet Union. Taking into account that Russia considers itself the successor of the USSR, and its role in the conflict is high. Unfortunately, Moscow is not only a moderator in the negotiation process, but it also uses the existing conflicts as tools to preserve its influence. Russian officials say they are in favor of an early peaceful settlement of the Karabakh conflict, but unofficially they show that they are quite satisfied with the status quo, with preservation of a situation in which Armenia has occupied not only the whole of Nagorno-Karabakh but also 7 other districts in Azerbaijan in which no Armenians used to live. In fact, we proposed accepting partial satisfaction of the territorial claims of Armenia, and to accept the patronage of Russia in the form of entry into its military-political and economic structures, for promoting themselves to the liberation of the rest of the occupied territories. This does not fully meet the interests of Azerbaijan, and therefore lately we have been seeing some detachment of the Russian leadership on the settlement of the conflict.
- Can Russia put pressure on Armenia, if it wants to?
- Of course! Armenia is completely dependent on Russia economically and militarily. We are told that Armenia demonstrates intransigence in the negotiations, and that Moscow cannot do anything. But we see that Russia continues to provide a large number of Armenians with modern weapons for free, it spread its military guarantees to the whole of Armenian territory; the Armenian economy is subsidized through the mechanism of low prices for energy resources, provides loans for hundreds of millions of dollars that are essentially unrecoverable. Is it any wonder in this case that Armenia is "intransigent"?
- Azerbaijan and Russia have failed to agree on the Gabala radar station. How will this affect bilateral relations?
- The Gabala radar station was built using the technology of the 1970s. It has exhausted its resources physically and morally, and after the implementation of a more modern station (such as "Voronezh") there is no more urgent need in Armavir to use the Gabala radar station of early warning of missile attack. This is evidenced by the fact that Moscow earlier rejected the use of similar stations deployed in Ukraine, and now it is going to stop the use of the slightly older "Dnepr-M" radar in Balkhash in Kazakhstan. Thus, renting the Gabala radar station was necessary for Russia to demonstrate its military presence in Azerbaijan. But there is a reasonable question, what interests of Azerbaijan's security does it provide? There has still not been a clear answer to this question. Gabala is an Azerbaijani Switzerland. Tourism is developing intensively here, so a military base is not a very good neighbor. As for the alleged amount for the lease requested by Azerbaijan, it seems excessive only at first glance. Moscow does not formally pay for its military base in Gyumri, but it is committed to ensuring the security of Armenia. In addition, it passes on for free or for a nominal charge weapons worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
Last year Russia sold us an S-300 anti-aircraft defense complex for 300 million dollars, but it gave a similar complex to Armenia for free. Russia does not just pay tens of millions of dollars to Kyrgyzstan for a military base, but also writes off debts for hundreds of millions of dollars. If you look at the situation from this angle, the amount requested by Azerbaijan seems not so great.
However, Russia's decision not to use the Gabala radar station in the future has been formally adopted, and we should proceed from this fact. I do not think that this should impose such a strong negative impact on Russian-Azerbaijani relations. The emerged cooling is quite surmountable. As it was in the past, when Soviet and then Russian troops were completely withdrawn from Azerbaijan, and when Azerbaijan did not renew their participation in the Collective Security Treaty Organization. There are other examples.
What our countries can give to each other is so much more than that which you cannot negotiate. There is no need to talk about Russia's importance to Azerbaijan. But the long-term interests of Russia are in a stable, friendly Azerbaijan. We are an interesting and solvent economic partner for Russia. Azerbaijan has the largest armed forces in the region and has a Soviet-era infrastructure for the Air Force and Navy. So even after the closure of the Gabala radar station, Moscow and Baku have something to discuss and to negotiate about for mutual benefit. So I am sure that pragmatic considerations overshadow the existing confusion and discontent.
