Ex-envoy Bryza criticizes the US administration

By Armenia Today

TURAN reports that the US ex-Ambassador to Azerbaijan Matthew Bryza recently openly subjected the policy of the US administration on the South Caucasus.

“The US government believes that we have focused, all of our priorities on the South Caucasus, but the region does not feel it. On the contrary, they feel cheated”, Bryza said, speaking on May 2 in Washington, DC Jamestown Foundation.

Bryza was critical of the efforts of the US administration to "ignore the opinion of Azerbaijan in Turkey-Armenia rapprochement”.

"Normalization of Turkey-Armenia is great if achievable. But this is not achievable, and has a negative impact on the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process”, he said. "No matter how much we wanted Armenian-Turkish rapprochement, we got nothing," the diplomat added.

On the issue of Nagorno-Karabakh, Bryza predicted that a peace agreement should not be expected unless US starts dealing with this matter at a sufficiently high level: the level of Secretary of State and sometimes even in the level of President. "The Azerbaijani government will not begin hostilities, until it finally loses confidence in the peace talks. At the same time, the risks associated with military conflicts are growing. For many years we have talked about the three strategic interests in the Caucasus: security, energy and internal reforms. All of them are important and should be followed, if the US does not want to lose the region”, he said.

The ex-Ambassador also touched upon the issue of democracy in Azerbaijan Bryza said that for now there’s no basis for an uprising alike the ‘Arab spring’ there. “The President is still the most popular political figure there”, he said, adding that there are a lot of young activists who want to change Azeri political system for the better and they should be helped. However, according to Bryza unlike Arab young people the Azerbaijani activists understand that everyone would lose if they take the streets, so they are ready to cooperate with the government that clams to develop democratic political system.

Bryza also said that Baku is strongly against the Iranian war as it will bring enormous human and social threats to Azerbaijan. "But the US administration is little aware of what is going on between Iran and the South Caucasus".

After his address Bryza gave an interview to the Washington correspondent of the Turan agency.

-  I assume after your today’s speech, many democrats in Baku will question whether Ambassador Bryza is trying to advocate for Azeri government’s policy in Washington DC, or as a former senior diplomat, is trying to pressure the Democrat Administration not to let relationship with Azerbaijan to get out of track? Which of these is true?

- None of them. I’m an independent person. I exist on my own right now, I’m a private business person, and I’m an independent academic heading a think-tank in Tallinn, Estonia,  The International center for Defense Studies, so these sorts of events are new for me, and it’s amazing that I can just say what I think.

 So I’m saying what I think.  I was very proud to develop a US policy towards Azerbaijan that reflected our government’s views, but my views too, I believe in them, so if my views sound similar to the US policy; this is because I believe in them.

- You called on the US administration to take the Karabakh negotiations on a very senior level. Does that mean that we should expect meetings on the presidents level hosted by the White House, just same as the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations?

- No, not at all. I don’t think that’s realistic. I don’t think we are ever going to get that sort of level top participation, like President Clinton offered in the case of Middle East peace process. I think, number one, it’s not healthy if the Minsk group Co-Chairs has the president involved at that level, it just creates an imbalance. And, number two, I think we are stuck in the process now unless the two presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia feel trust toward each other. And I don’t believe trust will evolve organically, I think that has to be generated somehow. And I think that’s a natural role for the United States, and if the US doesn’t do that, Russia won’t do that, France won’t do that, and so who else is going to do that within the Minsk group co-chair countries? Nobody. So I think it’s up to us to do that.

-Truly, why President Medvedev, or years ago then-President Shirak can do it and president Obama can’t? Is that what you expect from him?

- I don’t believe President Obama will get involved, I don’t anticipate that. But Secretary Clinton is ready to be involved more, and in our bilateral diplomacy with Russia the issue of facilitating and not manipulating Nagorno-Karabakh peace process should be an agenda item.  In other words, the profile of Nagorno-Karabakh settlement process needs to be elevated on our diplomatic agenda, on the level of the Secretary of State, and sometimes, the President.

- I want to take you back to the Congressional hearings on your Ambassador nomination two years ago, when some here in Washington, DC were concerned if Ambassador Bryza, being a close friend to the Azeri government, will be ignored in Baku when it comes to addressing issues like democracy, human rights and other problems in the country. Do you think the Azeri government was listening to you?

- I do think they did because of the initiatives that we launched. My approach is not to lecture to them; my approach is to try to look at the situation the way it is, to identify what the real obstacles are, which to me the oligarchy concentration of power is, and then figure out the realistic ways to change that situation.

   It’s impossible to do by flipping a switch or releasing a statement, it’s only possible by working day after day with people with authority to win their trust. And to convince them that our goal is not to overthrow the government of Azerbaijan, and to convince them that we didn’t launch the uprisings in the broader Middle East and we don’t want them in Azerbaijan. And also to convince them that they need, they must move forward on these reforms, or else in the long run they can’t succeed.

   And so with that least to them is the opportunity to define success jointly with the government of Azerbaijan through realistic, achievable steps, and there are many ways for doing that. I started up a dialog forum between society leaders or presidential administration, or was about to start it and I had to go. We were working in other spheres, attempting legal reforms; advancing electronic government to fight corruption, new code for fighting corruption as well, competition code to make sure economy is more open. There are many specific ways to do it, and they are listening!

- It will be unfair if I don’t ask you about Ambassador Richard Morningstar, what do you think of President Obama’s nomination?

- He is fantastic; he is unbelievably the best possible choice. He knows the country, he knows the region, he is a strategic thinker, and he cares very much about Azerbaijan.