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International Conference
«Conflicts in the Caucasus: History, the Present and Prospects for Resolution»
Baku (Azerbaijan) 22-23 October, 2012 and Tbilisi (Georgia) 25-26 October, 2012
INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS
Jannatkhan EYVAZOV
Jannatkhan Eyvazov, Deputy director of the Institute of Strategic Studies of the Caucasus, executive secretary of
Central Asia and the Caucasus (Baku, Azerbaijan)
Agenda of the Year
2005 was not a year in which Azerbaijan did any serious rethinking about its relations with the outside world. The country’s leadership retained its main foreign political priorities, and efforts were largely directed toward resolving the following issues: settling the conflict with Armenia, implementing transregional energy and transportation projects and reinforcing the republic’s international position in this respect, integrating into European and Euro-Atlantic structures, and establishing relations with its closest neighbors. What is more, in this context, the parliamentary election held on 6 November should be singled out in particular. It had an unprecedented influence both on Azerbaijan’s domestic political situation and on its international contacts.
International Activity
At the end of 2004-beginning of 2005, relations with Iran underwent a perceptible upswing. In December 2004, high-ranking Iranian officials, including Defense Minister Ali Shamkhani and Security Minister Ali Yunisi, visited Azerbaijan. Many analysts assessed these visits, as well as the participation of Azerbaijan’s delegation in a meeting of the bilateral Intergovernmental Commission on Economic Cooperation held in Tehran, as preparations for Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliev’s official visit to the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI). Both sides pinned particular hopes on this visit with respect to finding a solution to the most urgent problems in bilateral relations.
In January, the preparation and adoption by a PACE of a resolution on the Conflict over the Nagorno-Karabakh Region Dealt with by the OSCE Minsk Conference aroused a flurry of diplomatic activity. Azerbaijan responded unequivocally to this document, but on the whole sociopolitical circles assessed it as a diplomatic victory. The resolution included several provisions which strengthened Azerbaijan’s negotiating stance. This primarily applies to the first article of the resolution, which states: “Considerable parts of the territory of Azerbaijan are still occupied by Armenian forces, and separatist forces are still in control of the Nagorno-Karabakh region.”1
The first ten days in February were marked by active contacts with NATO, in particular by visits by Assistant Secretary General of the North Atlantic Alliance for Security Issues Patric Hardown and NATO Secretary General’s Special Representative for Central Asia and the Southern Caucasus Robert Simmons. The main issue discussed at the talks was the expansion of bilateral cooperation, in particular finishing up work on the Individual Partnership Action Plan (IPAP).
In February, the country’s president made two foreign visits: a working visit to Russia and an official visit to Italy. March was a particularly busy month in this respect, during which the head of state paid official visits to Saudi Arabia, China, and Poland.
An important event in March was completion of the work of a special OSCE mission and publication of its report on the Situation in Nagorno-Karabakh as a U.N. General Assembly document. But even prior to this, in the fall of 2004, on the initiative of official Baku, the General Assembly approved a resolution on the situation in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan, in which the OSCE was asked to urgently send a multinational fact-finding mission to carry out an investigation and present a report on the situation in the occupied territories. The mission revealed facts which justified Azerbaijan’s concern about Armenians settling in the occupied territories. Commenting on the results of the investigation, Azerbaijan Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Araz Azimov said that the facts established by the mission correlated with those presented by official Baku. For example, according to the Azerbaijan government, 20-23,000 people have settled in the occupied territories, while the mission’s statistics were 15-16,000.2
In April, intensive contacts with the OSCE continued, during which, as throughout the whole of 2005, settlement of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict and carrying out of democratic reforms in Azerbaijan, as well as the holding of free and fair parliamentary elections, were discussed. This last topic was also discussed during OSCE Chairman and Foreign Minister of Slovenia Dimitrij Rupel’s visit to Azerbaijan at talks with representatives of the government, opposition, and the nongovernmental sector.
Along with this, in April, the U.S. noticeably stepped up its foreign policy activity with respect to Azerbaijan, which was shown by the following high-ranking U.S. officials’ visits to the republic: Deputy Commander of the European Command (EUCOM) Charles Wald, Defense Minister Donald Rumsfeld, and U.S. State Department’s Senior Advisor for Eurasia Steven Mann. The public showed great interest in the visits by the Pentagon representatives. The details of the talks were not disclosed, but official statements noted that their participants discussed aspects of developing bilateral cooperation in the military sphere. However, unofficial sources provided more specific information, according to which these talks focused on such issues as deploying mobile forces in order to protect the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline;3 creating a so-called Caspian Guard—a special subdivision with its headquarters in Baku for monitoring the water area of the Caspian Sea and guarding the land borders of Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan;4 and using Azerbaijan’s territory in the event of a military campaign against Iran. These issues blend extremely well into the overall picture of the geopolitical processes in Eurasia related to the development of the antiterrorist campaign, the abrupt deterioration in American-Iranian relations, and the plans of the U.S. military command to re-deploy military bases from Western Europe to the East.
In April, the country’s president, Ilham Aliev paid official visits to Pakistan and Moldova, states which view Azerbaijan as one of their closest allies. Relations with Moldova are based on similar strategic priorities, which are also being executed through different international forums functioning in the post-Soviet space, primarily GUAM. The visit to Moldova was a graphic example of this. In addition to promoting bilateral relations, one of the purposes of this visit was for Ilham Aliev to participate in the GUAM Kishinev summit, at which settlement of the conflicts in Transdniester, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Nagorno-Karabakh was discussed.5 During the summit, Ilham Aliev held bilateral meetings with the leaders of Rumania, Ukraine, Georgia, and Lithuania. The summit ended in the adoption of the Kishinev Declaration “In the Name of Democracy, Stability, and Development.”
In April, no noteworthy progress was made in the talks on settling the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict. Nevertheless, the meeting of the foreign ministers of both countries held on 15 April in London with the cochairmen of the OSCE Minsk Group within the framework of the Prague Process provided more graphic evidence of the immense difference in the sides’ opinion on the issue. An agreement was reached to hold another round of talks on 27 April in Frankfurt, which, incidentally, did not take place due to Armenia’s refusal to take part in it.
In May, the talks on this issue were continued (at the presidential level) in Warsaw with the participation of the cochairmen of the Minsk Group and the foreign ministers of the Russian Federation and France. But these talks did not lead to any major breakthrough in the settlement process either. When they ended, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mamediarov noted that “the sides discussed the possibility of enforcing the Prague agreements on Karabakh.”6 According to Araz Azimov “…as many as nine issues are being discussed at the talks on settlement of the Karabakh conflict, each of which has sub-topics.” The deputy minister designated the following questions among those under discussion: returning the occupied territory; withdrawing the troops; ensuring security; creating conditions for returning the population; demining the territory; and rehabilitating the territory.7 On the whole, in May, despite the lack of obvious results, international activity continued to buzz around the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, as evidenced by visits to the region by EU Special Representative for the Southern Caucasus Heikki Talvitie and the cochairmen of the OSCE Minsk Group.
The trend toward intensifying Azerbaijani-Iranian contacts was designated once more during a visit by Azerbaijan’s defense minister in May to Tehran, where the Memorandum on Cooperation in the Military Sphere was signed. Observers directly tied this event to the April visits to Azerbaijan by high-ranking Pentagon representatives. The question of the United States’ military presence in Azerbaijan and use of its territory in the military operation against Iran, which was widely discussed in political circles against a background of confidentiality of American-Azerbaijani contacts, could not help but attract the attention of official Tehran. This was fraught with the danger of the southern neighbor having an inadequate response to the situation. It appears that Azerbaijan was trying to appease the Iranian authorities by signing the mentioned memorandum. While the latter saw this document as another step in Azerbaijan’s neutralization in the event American-Iranian relations developed along the worst possible lines.
The situation relating to the withdrawal of Russian military bases from Georgia had a significant impact on Azerbaijan’s political activity in the region. For example, serious concern was aroused in Azerbaijan by the news that some of the armaments (according to some data, up to 40%)8 would be sent to the Russian army base deployed in Giumri, Armenia. Official Baku’s protest against these plans was expressed in a note sent on 23 May by the country’s Foreign Ministry to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.9 Some analysts believe that it is precisely the building up of Armenia’s military potential with the help of its CSTO ally, that is, Russia, that compelled official Baku to raise the country’s military budget by 70% in 2006.10
The end of the month was marked by perhaps the main event of the year, a ceremony was held on 25 May at the Sangachal Terminal, approximately 40 km from the capital, to launch the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline11 (its Azerbaijani section began to be filled with oil). For Azerbaijan, this meant not only that so-called “big oil” could now be exported, but it also gave the country a lever of influence on resolving political problems. This lever became more significant due to the official beginning of the implementation of another transregional transport project, that is, the signing of a Declaration on Creating the International Kars-Akhalkalaki-Tbilisi-Baku Rail Corridor.12
During the summer, the intensity of international contacts naturally slackened off. A certain amount of diplomatic activity continued around the key regional (the conflict with Armenia) and domestic (the parliamentary election) problems, but nothing more than this. This period was more reminiscent of a breather between the arduous international ups and downs of the spring—maneuvering in the aggravated American-Iranian relations, forming transregional corridors, the unproductive talks with Armenia—and the fall-winter months, which promised to be no less arduous, particularly with respect to the upcoming parliamentary election. Nevertheless, Azerbaijan's president Ilham Aliev made four foreign visits in the summer—an official one to Croatia and three working ones: to St. Petersburg, to participate in the ninth International Economic Forum, to Kiev, to participate in the international investment forum, and to Kazan, to participate in the anniversary events on the occasion of the city’s 1,000th anniversary and in the CIS summit.
The talks on settlement of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict, which showed no perceptible results, continued in June at the foreign minister level in Paris. They were made memorable by Azerbaijan’s proposal to restore the Agdam-Khankendi-Shusha-Lachin (Azerbaijan)-Goris-Sisian (Armenia)-Shakhbuz (Nakhchyvan Autonomous Republic) motorway with access to Turkey.13
What is more, in June Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan paid an official visit to Baku. Several months prior to this, the number of bilateral cooperation issues was augmented by another important aspect for official Ankara—the need to withdraw North Cyprus (TRNC) from international isolation. For example, at the end of May at a joint conference held during Recep Erdogan’s previous visit to Baku, Azerbaijan’s president, Ilham Aliev, noted: “…Azerbaijan will do everything to withdraw North Cyprus from international isolation. In particular, the offices of Azerbaijani tourist companies will soon open in Cyprus. There will also be direct air flights from Azerbaijan to North Cyprus.”14
As the parliamentary election drew nearer, international activity aimed at ensuring its democratic nature intensified. It can be said that throughout the entire year, this activity was almost as intense as the efforts exerted to resolve the key political and economic issues in the republic. What is more, against the background of the summer doldrums with respect to regional problems, the election became practically the most important topic. Along with the fact that it was associated with numerous visits by the representatives of several international structures and leading Western countries (by a delegation of the Council of Europe Committee of Ministers or Monitoring Group, EU Special Representative for the Southern Caucasus Heikki Talvitie, former U.S. State Secretary and Head of the National Institute of Democracy Madeleine Albright, U.S. Undersecretary of State on Global Affairs Paula Dobriansky, Head of PACE René van der Linden, and others), this topic was discussed at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and in other European organizations. Resolution 1456 on the Functioning of Democratic Institutions in Azerbaijan testified in particular to Europe’s increasing activity regarding the accelerated democratization of Azerbaijan.15
The July talks on settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict were made memorable by another tour of the cochairmen of the Minsk Group to the region. Although no obvious progress was made in resolving the differences in the sides’ viewpoints, during this trip, unofficial information appeared about a new “package–step-by-step” plan,16 which aroused a broad public response in both countries, although their officials immediately came forward with refutations.
On the invitation of U.S. State Secretary Condoleezza Rice, in August Azerbaijan’s Foreign Minister visited the United States. Along with the current state of the talks on Nagorno-Karabakh and cooperation in the antiterrorist coalition and bilateral economic relations, the main topics of discussion were issues relating to the development of democracy, which became the leading topic of the summer.17
What is more, at the end of August, the Azerbaijan-Armenian dialog was revived—the foreign ministers of the two countries held talks in Moscow, and the presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia met in Kazan. But despite the optimistic forecasts about the possibility of signing an agreement, which was related to some changes in viewpoints designated in July, the talks between the presidents ended in the same way as the previous round in Warsaw.
At the end of August, a delegation from the unrecognized TRNC visited Azerbaijan. It should be noted that that situation relating to the political ups and downs involving North Cyprus placed official Baku in a very difficult position. On the one hand, it had to take into account the interests of Turkey, its traditional ally, which supports Azerbaijan in all questions and at all levels. After the unsuccessful referendum on reunification of the two parts of the island on 24 April, Turkey was interested in withdrawing the TRNC from international isolation. On the other hand, Azerbaijan’s relations with Greece and Greek Cyprus are just as important. These countries are supported by the European Union, with which Azerbaijan has to endorse its Action Plan under the European Neighborhood Policy in the near future.18
The parliamentary election remained one of the main topics discussed during the visits to Baku by high-ranking representatives from the U.S., the West European countries, and international organizations, which took place at the end of August-beginning of September. As the election approached, the intensity of these contacts increased. The visitors clearly made it understood that 6 November would be an important test for the republic with respect to its correspondence to Euro-Atlantic values, on which the Western democracies’ support of Azerbaijan in resolving its urgent political and economic problems would largely depend.
In September, the President of Azerbaijan made an official visit to Bulgaria, during which a Joint Declaration of the Heads of State and several other documents were signed.
The Euro-Atlantic vector held sway in October. The main, but not the only aspect sustaining it was the upcoming election and the West’s interest in ensuring it was held democratically. An important event was the official visit by a Latvian delegation headed by its president, Vaira Vike-Freiberga. On the whole, the month was quite propitious in terms of visits by high-ranking foreign guests. Azerbaijan was visited by Secretary of the CIS Executive Committee Vladimir Rushailo, Chief of the Turkish General Staff Hilmi Özkök, deputy U.S. State Secretary for Europe and Eurasia Daniel Fried, and Cochairman of the OSCE Minsk Group from the U.S. Steven Mann, as well as the European Union Troika, which consisted at that time of representatives from Great Britain (chairing in the European Union), Austria (next country to chair in the EU), and the European Commission.
There were also other visits in October. But the main event of the month was the launching of the Georgian section of the BTC pipeline, the official ceremony of which took place in Gardabani. It should be noted that during the entire time the project was being implemented (decision-making, designing, building), fears were expressed about the expediency of laying the BTC through the Samtskhe-Javakhetia region of Georgia, which is predominantly populated by Armenians. Building of the Georgian section was also accompanied by protests from several local NGOs which claimed that laying this route would be detrimental to the region’s environment.
The last two months of the year did not bring about any significant changes in Azerbaijan’s relations with the outside world. Attention shifted more to the parliamentary election as it approached. What is more, the election campaign itself, which was unequivocally evaluated by international observers,19 meant that this topic continued to be one of the top news items in the post-election period too. The European countries, the U.S., and several international organizations put perceptible pressure on the Azerbaijani authorities to correct the violations registered during the election. The authorities, in turn, tried to ensure that international goodwill toward the country was not adversely affected. Admittedly, only toward the end of November, the topic of the election began to die down slightly. Cooperation came to the fore again with the North Atlantic Alliance (talks with NATO Secretary General’s Special Representative for Central Asia and the Southern Caucasus Robert Simmons in Baku) and the European Union (meeting between the Azerbaijani foreign minister and the EU Ministerial Troika in Brussels and the beginning of technical consultations associated with drawing up the Action Plan for the republic’s participation in the European Neighborhood Policy) and, of course, settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
After the fall break due to the parliamentary election in Azerbaijan and the referendum on constitutional changes in Armenia, talks were renewed in December on settlement of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict. The cochairmen of the Minsk Group met with the foreign ministers of both countries in Ljubljana. Then the cochairmen made their next tours. And as the year drew to a close, the OSCE high-planning group came to the region in order to evaluate the situation and develop conditions for deploying peacekeeping forces in the event a political solution was reached, which aroused a serious discussion in Azerbaijani society about the imminent prospects for settling the conflict.
What is more, Azerbaijan’s diplomatic activity in December was aimed at developing relations with the Islamic world. Here we should note the working visit by Azerbaijan’s president to Saudi Arabia to participate in the third special summit of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). The end of the year was marked by the further development of Azerbaijani-Iranian relations. The visit to Baku by Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, the meeting of the presidents of the two countries in Nakhchyvan at the ceremony to mark the beginning of deliveries of Iranian gas to the Nakhchyvan Autonomous Republic, as well as the agreements on cooperation in the fight against international terrorism and drug trafficking reached during Azerbaijani Minister of National Security Eldar Makhmudov’s visit to the IRI can be considered a logical continuation of the rapprochement between the two countries in 2005.
General Conclusions
The year was memorable for Azerbaijan’s relatively intensive interaction with the outside world, which was largely promoted by the favorable international conditions for this: development of the antiterrorist campaign launched by the U.S. and its allies in the Middle East with the prospect of it spreading to Iran; completion of the building of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline as the main segment of a diversified system for exporting the energy resources of the Central Eurasian countries to the West and the Western democracies’ heightened interest in settlement of the “frozen” conflicts hindering the efficiency of this system; and the wave of Color Revolutions in the post-Soviet countries, which significantly raised the influence of the Euro-Atlantic vector here and, consequently, weakened Russia’s position. It goes without saying that Azerbaijan’s foreign policy activity aimed at resolving the most urgent problems presumed taking these conditions into account. And although it cannot be said that this activity helped to resolve the problems faced by the republic at the beginning of 2005, there is every reason to believe that the results achieved last year will have a significant impact on the resolution of these problems in the future.
The Armenian-Azerbaijani Conflict
A solution to Azerbaijan’s most urgent problem—the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict—was not found in 2005, although intensive talks, perceptible foreign interests, and international pressure on the sides gave rise to the hopes that a peace agreement might be signed. But this year cannot be considered entirely fruitless. 2006 promises at least to retain the favorable external conditions for settlement, to which one more extremely important circumstance will be added—no national elections are scheduled in Azerbaijan and Armenia which could lead to undesirable politicization of the problem. Nevertheless, an extremely important condition of the settlement process is the desire and ability of the conflicting sides themselves to find a solution to the problem within the general accepted regulations of international law, primarily the impermissibility of changing the interstate borders with the use of military force.
Relations with Closest Neighbors
In terms of Azerbaijan’s relations with its neighbors, this period can be called the “year of Iran.” One of the main reasons for official Tehran’s open friendliness was of course the deterioration of its relations with Washington. Azerbaijan was given an extremely important role in the future of these relations, whereby from both sides. In our opinion, in the near future, the development of Azerbaijan’s cooperation with Iran will depend to a decisive extent on two factors. First, on which specific methods and tools Washington will include in its policy in the region. Second, on the line of tactical behavior Iran chooses with respect to Armenia and settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. It is still difficult to predict how long the trend toward mutual rapprochement will continue in Azerbaijani-Iranian relations.
As for Russian-Azerbaijani contacts, they often reflected the perceptible difference manifested in the post-Soviet period between official rhetoric and the actual state of affairs. The past year showed again that despite the declared positive aspects of the contacts, in reality relations between the two countries are far from problem-free. In particular, Russia’s viewpoints and approaches retain significant elements of traditional diplomacy. On the one hand, this applies to the magnificent arrangements for the Year of Azerbaijan celebrations in Russia and the Russian Federation’s mediation in the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict within the framework of the OSCE Minsk Group. While, on the other, redeployment of some of Russia’s military hardware from Georgia to Armenia made it clear once more that there is a perceptible difference between the statements on “friendship” and the tension which characterizes reality.
Relations with Turkey and Georgia did not have the simulation characteristic of the previous example and continued to show signs of strategic rapprochement, the most important evidence of which in 2005 was the launching of the BTC pipeline and the signing of a declaration on creating the international Kars-Akhalkalaki-Tbilisi-Baku Rail Corridor by the presidents of the three countries. There is every reason to believe that the three countries are still interested in developing de facto cooperative relations, at least under the current geo-economic conditions and taking into account the degree of current interdependence.
Relations with the West
Relations with the West, in particular with European and Euro-Atlantic structures, were somewhat complicated by the parliamentary election and the situation around North Cyprus. Judging by everything, in the near future too, these will continue to be urgent topics in official Baku’s contacts with the Council of Europe and the European Union. However, they will also depend to a perceptible degree not only on these organizations and Azerbaijan, but also on the viewpoints of other interested actors, primarily the U.S. and Turkey.
Intensive talks with Washington on developing military-political relations, including on the possible use of Azerbaijan’s territory by U.S. armed forces, were mainly limited to building two radar stations on the border with Iran and Russia. But there is reason to believe that in the near future, these relations will develop further.
Geopolitical Reference Points
The country’s geopolitical reference points did not undergo any major changes. In the system of Eurasian West-East and North-South relations, the first vector retained its predominance. In so doing, foreign political activity in the southern vector helped to strengthen the country’s position in the second vector as well. However, the relatively high intensity of interaction in the second vector observed throughout the year is most likely tactical in nature and in the near future will not become the dominating reference point in Azerbaijan’s relations with the outside world.
1 Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Resolution 1416 (2005) [http://assembly.coe.int/Documents/AdoptedText/TA05/ERES1416.htm], 12 January, 2005. Back to text
2 See: Zerkalo, 19 March, 2005 [http://www.zerkalo.az/new/arcview.php?dayar=19&month=3&year=2005&category=2#27507], 11 January, 2006. Back to text
3 See: Zerkalo, 12 April, 2005 [http://www.zerkalo.az/new/arcview.php?dayar=12&month=4&year=2005&category=3#27973], 11 Januray, 2006. Back to text
4 See: M. Chernov, “Kaspiiskoe more stanet amerikanskim” [http://www.ir.spb.ru/chernov-204.htm], 11 December, 2005. Back to text
5 See: Nezavisimaia gazeta, 25 April, 2005 [http://www.ng.ru/cis/2005-04-25/6_guaam.html], 11 December, 2005. Back to text
6 Zerkalo, 17 May, 2005 [http://www.zerkalo.az/new/arcview.php?dayar=17&month=5&year=2005&category=1], 11 January, 2006. Back to text
7 See: Zerkalo, 20 May, 2005 [http://www.zerkalo.az/new/arcview.php?dayar=20&month=5&year=2005&category=2#28892], 11 January, 2006. Back to text
8 See: Kavkazski uzel/Daijest SMI. “Zakrytie rossiiskoi bazy v Gruzii meniaet strategicheskii balans,” 6 July, 2005 [http://kavkaz.memo.ru/printdigest/digest/id/826615.html], 17 December, 2005. Back to text
9 For more detail, see: Zerkalo, 24 May, 2005 [http://www.zerkalo.az/new/arcview.php?dayar=24&month=5&year=2005&category=3#28926], 11 January, 2005. Back to text
10 See: Kavkazski uzel/Daijest SMI… Back to text
11 The total length of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline is approximately 1,760 kilometers. Its throughput capacity is 50 million tons of oil a year (see: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan_Pipeline], 18 January, 2006). Back to text
12 Within the framework of this project, there are plans to build a Kars-Akhalkalaki railroad 98 km in length (68 km through Turkey and 30 km through Georgia) and restore the Akhalkalaki-Tbilisi railroad. The approximate cost of the project is estimated at 400 million dollars (see: Podpisana deklaratsiia po sozdaniiu zh/d koridora Kars-Tbilisi-Baku // Logistic.Ru, 26 May, 2005 [http://www.logistic.ru/news/2005/5/26/15/51751.html], 18 December, 2005). Back to text
13 See: Zerkalo, 21 June, 2005 [http://www.zerkalo.az/new/arcview.php?dayar=21&month=6&year=2005&category=2#29460], 11 January, 2006. Back to text
14 Zerkalo, 1 June, 2005 [http://www.zerkalo.az/new/arcview.php?dayar=1&month=6&year=2005&category=1], 11 January, 2006. Back to text
15 See: Council of Europe, Parliamentary Assembly # 1456 (2005) [http://assembly.coe.int/Main.asp?link=http://assembly.coe.int/Documents/AdoptedText/TA05/ERES1456.htm#_ftn1], 18 December, 2005. Back to text
16 It mentioned in particular that “…the project stipulates opening communication channels, returning the five occupied regions around Nagorno-Karabakh to Azerbaijan, returning refugees and forced migrants to their place of permanent residence, deploying OSCE peacekeeping forces in the conflict zone, holding a referendum in Nagorno-Karabakh in 10-15 years for defining the region’s status, etc.” (see: Zerkalo, 14 July, 2005 [http://www.zerkalo.az/new/arcview.php?dayar=14&month=7&year=2005&category=3#29941], 11 January, 2006). Back to text
17 See: Zerkalo, 5 August, 2005 [http://www.zerkalo.az/new/arcview.php?dayar=5&month=8&year=2005&category=3#30496], 11 January, 2006. Back to text
18 The opening of an airline in July from Baku to the capital of North Cyprus Lefkosia led to a severe reaction from the Republic of Cyprus, the position of which was also supported by the EU. In October, according to a report by Radio Liberty, EU Commissar for Foreign Relations Benita Ferrero-Valdner noted that “…the creation by Azerbaijan of relations with North Cyprus may slow down the Azerbaijan Republic joining the Neighborhood Policy of this organization. The EU only recognizes the independence of the Cyprus Republic. But this state is protesting against the establishment of ties between Baku and Lefkosia, flights to North Cyprus from Azerbaijan” (see: IA Regnum, Azerbaijan za nedeliu, 12 October, 2005 [http://www.regnum.ru/news/527070.html], 27 December, 2005). This question in the interrelations between Azerbaijan and the EU was the topic of a bilateral discussion in subsequent months of 2005 as well. Back to text
19 Several observers (the CIS, Iran) acknowledged that the election met internationally recognized standards of democracy, while the international mission of observers which in particular included representatives of PACE, the OSCE, the European Parliament, and NATO, evaluated it as not meeting several important democratic standards. Back to text
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