Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 6
By Elmira Tariverdiyeva – Trend:
If you don’t have any haters, then something is wrong with you.
No matter if you’re Donald Trump, the People’s Republic of China or simply a successful professional, you must for sure have those who will prove that you are worth being hated, and the reason is your own opinion and the things you do ignoring the majority.
Azerbaijan also has its haters, and these are haters at the state level. In particular, in the European Parliament, this group includes MEPs Ulrike Lunacek, Marietje Schaake, Kati Piri, Alexander Graf Lambsdorff, Frank Engel, Jaromir Stetina, Eleni Theocharous and others, who are ardent haters of Azerbaijan and some other countries.
These haters couldn’t find a better opportunity and thoroughly prepared for the Brussels visit of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, who will discuss the most important issues of the Azerbaijani-European cooperation with EU’s High Representative Federica Mogherini, President of the European Council Donald Tusk and other officials.
On the initiative and under the sponsorship of Alexander Graf Lambsdorff, Kati Piri, Jaromir Stetina and Ulrike Lunacek, an event was held in Brussels, where the “favorite” characters of Azerbaijan haters – their colleagues of Azerbaijani origin, who fiercely hated their homeland – “activist” Emin Milli and journalist Khadija Ismayilova made speeches.
Systematic hostile campaigns and attacks against Azerbaijan, which is one of the EU Eastern Partnership countries, are no longer something new.
It was repeatedly noted that accusations against Azerbaijan are usually brought when the country achieves its next success by holding sports and humanitarian events, a song contest, or any election, which have to do with the people of Azerbaijan only.
Why this happens isn’t also a secret – someone in the West is irritated by absolutely independent policy of Azerbaijan, which pursues its policy in line with its national interests, without looking at anyone and wanting to discuss with anyone what it is going to do.
In fact, Azerbaijan is the only country that hasn’t made the obvious choice of our time – the West or the East. Thus, the pressure on the country is the only instrument which, according to some forces, can help push it and finally make the right choice.
Standard European haters are just one of those instruments.
They use various tricks – a reference to unverified facts, hysterical calls for the introduction of rigid and inadequate sanctions against a sovereign state, examples of obvious bias in the preparation of the next anti-Azerbaijani document that the notorious haters are trying to push through the parliament.
Characteristically, based on the bile towards the human rights in Azerbaijan, all haters stubbornly keep silence that the rights of hundreds of thousands of Azerbaijanis have been violated over more than 20 years and they have become refugees and internally displaced people as a result of occupation of Azerbaijani territories by Armenia.
Moreover, while yelling that Azerbaijan breaks off the negotiations on Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement, haters forget about international laws and turn a blind eye to the occupation by Armenia, never urging to impose sanctions against Armenia, which is keeping the Azerbaijani territories under occupation.
MEPs dare blame Azerbaijan on the basis of unverified, farfetched, falsified information, by ignoring a proven fact of occupation of Azerbaijani territories by Armenia.
These are not even double standards. It is rather an example of the unprincipled European policy in favor of the interests of some individuals.
Of course, the fact that Azerbaijan from the very beginning dictates the cooperation conditions irritates certain forces in the West.
For example, Baku initially made it clear that it is interested in the EU Eastern Partnership program only in terms of economic cooperation and it is unacceptable to include the political demands in the agreements.
Ukraine can be cited as an example of the consequences of hasty consent to the political aspects of cooperation agreements with the EU. No independent post-Soviet country would like to follow Ukraine’s example.
While taking into account the experience of some neighboring countries, Baku acted wisely and determined its own independent way of establishing relations with Brussels in its own interests.
One of the most important points on the agenda of the Azerbaijan-Europe relations is the mandate approved by the EU Council in November 2016 for the European Commission and the EU high representative for foreign affairs and security policy to hold negotiations on a new agreement with Azerbaijan.
The new agreement will be one of the main topics of discussion during the current visit of President Ilham Aliyev to Brussels.
The agreement on strategic partnership will affect many areas of cooperation – economy, trade, environmental issues, etc. – between Baku and the EU as a whole, as well as individual European countries.
In other words, the new agreement will conform to the principles approved in the European Neighborhood Policy document in 2015, and will offer a renewed basis for political dialogue and mutually beneficial cooperation between the EU and Azerbaijan.
An important area of cooperation with the West is also Azerbaijan’s significant role as one of the main suppliers of gas to the EU – the supplier which will be able to ensure energy security of Europe.
Transportation corridors and Azerbaijan’s invaluable role in the fight against extremism and terrorism will also be reflected in the new agreement.
Besides, for Baku one of the main points in the new agreement is to ascertain the EU’s clear position concerning the settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
Azerbaijan indicated in draft agreement on strategic partnership that it plans to hold talks on this issue.
And whatever haters do, Brussels needs Baku more than Azerbaijan needs the EU.
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Elmira Tariverdiyeva is the head of Trend Agency's Russian News Service