Farhad Mehtiyev: “Azerbaijan will be subjected to a test: whether it is as strong a political player as it claims to be”

Independent political expert, professor of “The Caucasus” Institute, Farhad Mehtiyev, spoke to a VK correspondent about the results of Azerbaijan’s political efforts of the year.

- Was there any actual progress in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement this year?

- There are no actual steps forward. Azerbaijan wanted to negotiate an actual peace treaty; Armenia, in its turn, accused Baku of abandoning the existing principles of the conflict settlement. However, Yerevan tried to negotiate a new treaty – and Baku couldn’t agree to it. We are still in a dead-end – Armenia wouldn’t agree for Nagorno-Karabakh’s territorial re-integration into Azerbaijan, no matter how extensive its autonomy would be, and Azerbaijan would never recognize Karabakh’s independence. So for now an actual peace treaty is impossible

- How would you characterize the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs’ efforts?

- Everyone is disappointed in them, because they’ve put too much faith in the Minsk Group in the first place. We shouldn’t forget that they are only mediators, they can’t impose any treaty on any of the conflict parties. Azerbaijan wants the mediators to persuade Armenia that its position contradicts international legal norms. However, Baku doesn’t trust all Minsk Group members to be objective. Baku is dissatisfied with the Group’s efforts, because it wants the co-chairs to be more strict with Yerevan.

- There are rumors of possible military actions in the conflict zone. Is this scenario realistic?

- I don’t think that large-scale military actions are possible. Neither Azerbaijan, nor Armenia, nor external powers would like that. However, shootouts have been happening throughout the year. 15 people died in just the last month. I think this situation will continue, but the peace treaty of 1994 won’t be officially broken.

- Azerbaijan was visited by a great number of top-ranking political figures. What visit was the most important one?

- All visits connected to the ‘South Stream’ or Trans-Caspian pipeline projects are very important, as Azerbaijan is a major gas and oil exporter. I can also mark the visits of Catherine Ashton and Eastern European Presidents. On the contrary, I don’t think that Nicolas Sarkozy’s visit was of any real importance, he just couldn’t go to Armenia without visiting Azerbaijan as well.

- Do you think Azerbaijan will join the ‘Nabucco’ project in 2012?

- Yes, but at the same time Azerbaijan will carry on with the Trans-Caspian project, as none of these projects alone is able to export all the gas Azerbaijan plans to export. The project of importing Turkmen gas via Azerbaijani territory is also very important for Europe, at least until the regime in Iran changes. I can’t understand why Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan still can’t agree on the details of the project – the US exercises a great deal of pressure in this matter.

- Does the non-permanent membership in the UN Security Council in the coming year give Azerbaijan any political advantages?

-  Azerbaijan will be subjected to a test: whether it is such a strong political player on the global scale as it claims to be. We will experience a lot of difficulties due to our neighboring of Iran, if the situation escalates. In this case we will have to choose sides, and you know that Russia and Iran are close partners. If Moscow supports Teheran, Azerbaijan will also have to vote against anti-Iranian resolutions, which would lead to a deterioration in our relations with the West. However, the West should understand that Azerbaijan isn’t strong enough to spoil its relations with its immediate powerful neighbors such as Russia.

- Could Azerbaijan raise the Karabakh issue at future UN Security Council sessions?

- I don’t think that Azerbaijan’s membership of the UN Security Council will have any direct impact on the Nagorno-Karabakh problem. No single state determines the Council’s agenda, and its permanent members have the right of veto. And Russia, France and the US are already involved in the problem in the framework of the OSCE Minsk Group, so they might see putting the same problem on the UN’s agenda to be redundant.

By the way, there are 4 UN resolutions on Karabakh, and none of them recognizes Armenia as the aggressor, so not all of the Security Council permanent members are favorable to Azerbaijan’s point of view.

- Last spring opposition activists tried to organize unsanctioned rallies in Baku. What is your attitude to these actions?

- Demonstrations were in fashion this spring – Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, Syria were seized by unrest. And Azerbaijani oppositionists tried to ride this wave. However, they did gain popular support.

Interview by Ramin Naziev, exclusively to VK