Author: Orhan Sattarov, head of European office of VK
Last Saturday, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev gave an interview to the Russian TV channel "Russia-24", which touched on the major global trends in international politics, as well as some of the important aspects of Russian-Azerbaijani relations. In particular, the president dispelled rumors in the media that the closure of the Russian radar station in Gabala is associated with the U.S. position.
He answered the question by the Russian journalist Sergei Brilev "whether the Americans pushed" Azerbaijan on the Gabala issue: "This is absolutely not the case. We can not be forced by anyone. The history of the latest development of the initiatives in the region implemented by the ones you're talking about has shown that we do not obey anyone. Especially, making us do something against our strategic partner is impossible. "
Speaking about "recent initiatives" of the Americans in the region, the Azerbaijani president clearly applies to Washington's efforts to normalize relations between Turkey and Armenia in isolation from the process of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, which exposed the interests of Baku. Then the president explained in detail the Azerbaijani vision of the issue of the radar station in Gabala, highlighting purely commercial aspects: "The fact that the rent for the Gabala radar station was only $ 7 million for the territory, which covers about 300 acres in one of the most picturesque places of Azerbaijan, which is the second tourist destination after Baku. And if those who live far from the sea, relax by the sea, we who live near the Caspian Sea, relax in the mountains. Therefore, our desire was that the rent for this facility would be consistent with reality. First, to some extent, there would be compensation for the last ten years, because for the past ten years, Azerbaijan has never raised the issue of revision of prices, although everyone understood, I think, in Russia, too, that the price was, to put it mildly, symbolic. The desire to raise the rent was justified by the fact that over the last five or six years in the military-technical cooperation between Azerbaijan and Russia, there has been tremendous progress, the purchase equivalent to billions of dollars. We buy Russian military hardware at the world price. We believe that if we are buying at the world price, if we make all other calculations at the world price, the price for the rental must match or be close to that. By itself, the Gabala radar in Azerbaijan is of no importance, the information it receives is useless for us - we have no means to counter the information that gets to Gabala. So this should be settled on the basis of purely and friendly relations. We offered the Russian side to continue cooperation for another five or ten years at the new prices, but this was not accepted. "
There was another interesting statement by the Azerbaijani president in an interview to "Russia-24", which quite clearly demonstrates his "Euroscepticism". Talking about trends in global politics in the context of the eurozone crisis, Aliyev said: "For a while, the countries that gained their independence in the late 1990s were just not aware of what is really going on. I think, now, many of those who had illusions about the welfare and entry into any structure experience a deep disappointment. "
It is possible that, in a sense, one of the countries experiencing disappointment is Azerbaijan itself. It is fair to note that Azerbaijan, unlike neighboring Georgia, has never stated its desire to join NATO or the European Union. Also the South Caucasian republic rich in oil and gas reserves hardly pin its hopes on the West as a source of welfare in an economic sense. Recently, however, there is a discontent of double standards of Western partners in the political arena at all levels there. Active sponsorship and promotion of Western institutions and opposition openly politicized non-governmental public organizations, intense work with the radical opposition youth, sighting media campaign against the Azerbaijani government in leading European publications and other hostile tendencies can not be overlooked in Baku. The fact that the Americans easily "give up" their allies depending on the immediate political situation is seen in Azerbaijan, for instance, in an example of the "Arab Spring" and, in a sense, of neighboring Georgia.
Azerbaijan does not receive unanimous support of the West in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. The unnamed "reference" by Aliyev in an interview to a controversial U.S. initiative to unblock the Armenian-Turkish border without regard to Baku can hardly be coincidental.
In general, the interview with the Azerbaijani president, in which he stressed that his country will never go against its strategic partner in Russia, can be interpreted as a sign of the desire for further development of relations with Moscow, which since the return to power of Vladimir Putin observed some pause . Obviously, Baku, following its multi-vector foreign policy concept, is ready to continue to take into account Russian interests and Russian sphere of influence in the region. However, the Azerbaijani leadership has a very specific view in this respect: "Sphere of influence is not where people salute to you. Sphere of influence is where you feel comfortable, where you are respected and supported. "
