Author: VK
Today time to survive for Russia. Azerbaijan and other post-Soviet countries has passed, and time to live begins. We are establishing the institutes which are established in the West, for example, we encourage development of non-governmental organizations and cooperation between NGO and the government, including state support of NGO. This view was expressed by the member of the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation, the deputy head of the Inter-committee working group on international cooperation and public diplomacy, Sergey Markov in an interview to VK. “Americans have the best system in this sphere. We and Azerbaijan are not perfect, but we are developing faster than they, because we have to catch up. It is the most important thing”, the expert said. Speaking on the meeting between representatives of the Civic Chamber of Russia and the Council under President of Azerbaijan on state support of non-governmental organizations, Sergey Markov said that it was decided “to conduct an annual Russian-Azerbaijani forum of NGO and establish a society of NGO friends of Russia and Azerbaijan”. “The Council under President of Azerbaijan on state support of non-governmental organizations is an analogue of the Civic Chamber, but it includes only 11 people and has a different structure”, he said. “But they have grants similar to Russian scales – dozen million dollars for Azerbaijani nongovernmental organizations. This meeting confirms the growth of nongovernmental organizations’ influence on the situation in the world”.
According to Sergey Markov, “it was decided to conduct an annual Russian-Azerbaijani forum of NGO and establish a society of NGO friends of Russia and Azerbaijan, i.e. Russian organizations which are interested in cooperation with Azerbaijani colleagues, and Azerbaijani NGO which are interested in cooperation with Russian organizations. They will be active participants of the forum and certain projects. Moreover, we decided to develop our relations with diasporas. We will contribute to integration of diasporas. For example, the Azerbaijani Diaspora of Russia will be provided with extra courses, including free of charge, of the Russian language. Cooperation of the Azerbaijani Diaspora with other diasporas working in Russia will be encouraged. The same steps will be made toward Russian-speaking people in Azerbaijan. We also decided to make more youth projects and organize separate youth forums and youth projects within educational programs. For instance, we decided to encourage cooperation between universities. This issue is my cup of tea, as I am an alumnus of Lomonosov Moscow State University and the deputy president of Plekhanov Russian State University for Economics. We will try to do it. In addition, we decided to gather and organize open public lectures in universities of two countries during our visits. Azerbaijani colleagues expressed their interest to development of the situation with the public control. We have a very good law on public control and certain effective mechanisms are being implemented. They asked for maximum of materials on this for they could realize the same practice in Azerbaijan, especially in the health care system. We decided to provide closer cooperation in the sphere of observing elections. For example, our delegations will go to the presidential elections in Azerbaijani in October 2013, while their delegation will come to us in September 2013 on the united voting day. We also decided to cooperate in international organizations such as the Association of socio-economic councils. We are a member of it, but Azerbaijan is not. We will try to help them to take part in work of this organization”.
Besides, according to Markov, “Azerbaijani colleagues paid attention to such an important problem for them as the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh. We decided to encourage cooperation between Azerbaijani and Armenian communities in Moscow, including natives from Nagorno-Karabakh. The other discussed issue was the situation at the boundary, simplification of crossing the boundary by citizens. We decided to involve the Civic Chamber of Dagestan to the issue, it is very active and prominent. Dagestan is where the boundary between Russia and Azerbaijan lies. Thus, there is a lot to do. Certain people who will be responsible for the direction were appointed. In March our delegation of the Civic Chamber will visit Baku where the memorandum and treaties on cooperation on certain projects will be signed. The working group will prepare necessary documents on cooperation. Next week we will go to Baku to the humanitarian forum where the talks will be continued. I also plan to take a floor in the Institute for Political Science, Sociology and Law and Baku University and tell students about the Russian policy in the Caucasus, the foreign political concept of Russia, challenges which we face, and our position on the situation in the world.
By the way, a big interest was caused by a proposal to conduct one of sessions in a trilateral format: Russia-Turkey-Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan cooperates intensively with Turkey; they are brotherly countries with similar languages, they can understand each other without translation. We have very good relations with Azerbaijan and nice relations with Turkey. Our leaders have perfect relations. Relations between our civil societies are less developed. And we decided to establish the trilateral format and hold such a forum”.
