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  • A middle road in Azerbaijan

    Los Angeles Times, CA
    Aug 17 2008



    A middle road in Azerbaijan

    In a region torn by conflict, the tiny country in the Caucuses leans
    toward the West without riling Russia.

    Gregory Rodriguez
    August 18, 2008


    BAKU, AZERBAIJAN -- There's probably no country in the world watching
    the Russia-Georgia conflict more intently than this small, energy-rich
    nation to the south and east of the turmoil. It too leans toward the
    West. Its oil runs through the pipeline that crosses Georgia. And it
    too wants to know how far Russia will go to keep its former vassal
    states within its sphere of influence.

    Azerbaijan was one of the first Soviet republics to win
    independence. It's a rare secular Muslim nation with a tradition of
    religious tolerance -- it enjoys friendly relations with Israel. It
    also signed on to the U.S.-led war on terrorism, contributing troops
    to coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, and it has felt some heat
    from other Muslim nations because of it.

    But as friendly to the West as Azerbaijan is, it is under no illusions
    about its place in the world. It is betwixt and between superpowers
    and religious and ethnic groups in a volatile neighborhood. And unlike
    headstrong Georgia, which clearly miscalculated the extent to which
    the West would come to its aid, Azerbaijanis don't lean too far in any
    direction. They seem intent on pursuing a sometimes torturous process
    of diplomacy, compromise and caution.

    Consider what Sheik Allahshukur Pashazadeh, the chairman of the Muslim
    Board of the Caucuses, told me over tea and grapes: "There are never
    friends in politics. Individuals have friends, countries don't. Their
    interests are too complicated."

    "What does 'friend' mean?" echoed Samad Seyidov, who chairs the
    Foreign Relations Committee in the Azerbaijani parliament. "We just
    want normal relations."

    I came to Azerbaijan as a guest of the government for a conference on
    U.S.-Azerbaijani relations. The sheik wasn't on the official agenda,
    but the pragmatism he expressed was often repeated at the conference
    and across Baku by government representatives, thirtysomethings,
    businessmen and passersby.

    Not that Azerbaijanis are only Kissinger-esque realists. They harbor a
    flagrant and bitter -- and frankly debilitating -- enmity toward
    Armenians and Armenia, to whom Azerbaijan lost nearly one-fifth of its
    territory in a still technically unfinished war in the early 1990s --
    a cease-fire is in place, but not yet a truce. Beyond that, however,
    relations with nearby and neighboring states are decidedly textured
    and complicated.

    Turkey is their natural ally, another secular Muslim state and one
    with which Azerbaijan shares a common ethnic and linguistic
    heritage. But in Baku, Turkey's move toward a stronger mix of Islam
    and government can come in for criticism, even as some Azerbaijanis
    consider with envy its NATO membership and its attempt to join the EU.

    In general, for Azerbaijanis, shared religion does not predetermine
    cooperation or enmity. Azerbaijanis clearly see Georgia, a majority
    Christian country, as an ally and sympathize with it in the current
    conflict. Meanwhile, Iran, which like Azerbaijan is a majority Shiite
    nation and with whom it has cordial formal relations, is still looked
    upon with a healthy dose of distrust. And although Russian cultural
    and linguistic influence remains strong, and binational relations are
    good, you'd be hard-pressed to find an Azerbaijani who isn't deeply
    suspicious of Vladimir Putin et al. (It is not insignificant that Iran
    and Russia supported Armenia -- the former tacitly and the latter
    militarily -- in its war with Azerbaijan.)

    Such nuance ran through a wide-ranging discussion I had at a Georgian
    restaurant packed with young, educated residents in Baku. "You try to
    serve all masters," said 27-year-old journalist Olga Pukhayeza. "You
    try to be polite to everyone while maintaining your independence."
    Said Rashad Novruzov, 23: "For us, there's nothing really
    black-and-white. You can't trust everyone, and you can't distrust
    everyone."

    Azerbaijanis know their caught-in-the-middle status presents them with
    an opportunity. "Maybe we could be the answer to the clash of
    civilizations," Seyidov said. But mostly, it leaves them with the
    sense that they enjoy only a tenuous grip on their own destiny. The
    deputy minister for national security, Ali Shafiyev, even conceded
    that his nation's great resource, its oil and gas reserves,
    contributes to its shaky status. "On the one hand, interest in our oil
    makes us more secure, and on the other, it makes us more vulnerable,"
    he said.

    One thing seems to be certain. Even as Azerbaijan makes its move
    toward the West, it will not challenge or turn its back on Russia in
    the way that Georgia did a week and a half ago. On Thursday, Vitaliy
    Baylarbayov, the deputy vice president of SOCAR, the State Oil Co. of
    Azerbaijan Republic, told his American visitors that his company is
    considering an offer by Russia to buy all of the firm's natural gas
    production for both domestic use and export to Europe. The move would
    clearly give Russia even greater political leverage over
    energy-dependent Western European nations.

    Wouldn't such a deal impede Azerbaijan's embrace of Europe and the
    United States? No, Baylarbayov insisted. His state-owned company is
    strictly a commercial, not a political, enterprise, he said. Could any
    answer have been more pragmatic or more "Western" than that?

    From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
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