U.S, Washington, Nov. 21 / Trend News N.Bogdanova /

Azerbaijan's concerns about country's security guarantee as a NATO partner are fair and reasonable, "especially after war in Georgia last year", President of Jamestown Foundation in Washington DC Glen Howard believes.

"NATO can give security guarantees to a country in particular circumstance," Howard told Trend News today. He was commenting on Azerbaijani Deputy Foreign Minister Araz Azimov's proposal that NATO should provide security guarantees not only to its members, but also to partners such as Azerbaijan.

He said, "NATO can give security guarantee to a country in case of an attack, which is what happened in 1979 in the Persian Gulf - after the poll of the Shakh of Iran the US gave security guarantees to countries through bilateral agreements with those countries".

However, NATO's guarantees mustn't be understood as organization's military presence in the country.

"There will not be a US base or something on Azerbaijani territory," he said. "The first step is for Georgia to become a member of NATO, after that anyone would be positive for Azerbaijan."

The American expert also noted that Azerbaijan is an important partner for NATO in terms of energy security.

"Azerbaijan is already providing energy security to Western and Eastern European countries, so Azerbaijan has an important role because of the energy security aspect itself," he added.

Reminding Azerbaijan's great role in NATO's operations in Afghanistan, Howard proposed that the country also participates in the civil operations.

Azerbaijan can contribute in NATO's civil operations in Afghanistan in many ways in terms of men power, so anything Azerbaijani troops can do - it will help improve the situation, the expert said.

"If Azerbaijani troops are going to help in one area, that will lessen the need in NATO troops in this particular area, so that they can involve in some other area, for example, that helps put more troops in fighting the Taliban. So any role they are playing is very important," Howard said.

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