Azerbaijan, Baku, Dec. 2 /Trend, A Imanov/
Trend interviews the Head of the Foreign Relations Department of Azerbaijani Presidential Administration Novruz Mammadov
Trend: What is your estimation of the results of the OSCE Astana summit on Dec. 1-2?
Novruz Mammadov: The summit of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which unifies 56 countries, is unfortunately conducted rarely. Prior to the Astana summit, such an event was held 11 years ago. Usually at such summits, the OSCE makes a report on its activities and certain ideas, thoughts and decisions about the further future and integrity of the European countries and the countries nearby. The heads of states, governments and delegations made speeches in this regard.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev addressed the summit. The speech by the Head of Azerbaijani State was a concrete and strong message to the OSCE, and was met with great attention in the audience. I think this speech will be perceived as a message. Along with addressing the summit, the Azerbaijani president has held more than ten meetings with heads of different states and heads of delegations as part of the summit. These meetings focused on the bilateral relations and their development. I want to emphasize that during these meetings, the heads of delegations, heads of states and prime ministers asked the President of Azerbaijan about Azerbaijan's position in the resolution of the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the current state of the settlement process, and its prospects. The President of Azerbaijan has provided detailed information and there was held an exchange of views in this regard.
As known, during the summit, the presidents of the conflicting countries - Azerbaijan and Armenia, as well as the heads of delegations of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairing countries made a joint statement. This statement is very important. It was adopted in a 3+2 format, which points at even more strengthening efforts to resolve the Karabakh conflict in the present moment, and is a confirmation of increasing efforts.
The statement indicates that it is important to create conditions under which the parties, particularly Armenia, will not take destructive steps in this process and look for reasons for the delay of the settlement. Thus, this statement is a document that limits Armenia's possibilities to commit destructive steps. The statement determines the main target of resolving the conflict through peaceful negotiations and ensuring stability and security. At the same time, the statement implies the solution of the conflict within the international norms and principles of law without using force, based on compliance with the UN Charter, the Helsinki Final Act, UN Security Council resolutions and other documents adopted on the process.
Furthermore, the statement envisages the withdrawal of Armenian troops from Azerbaijani territories, because one of the items in the documents, to which the statement is referred, is the withdrawal of Armenian forces from occupied Azerbaijani territories.
In general, it should also be especially noted that as this is a statement by the presidents of the conflicting countries and the co-chairing countries, it must be understood as follows: the presidents of the co-chairing countries have committed themselves to be more active in the conflict settlement process. So far, particularly, for over a year, Russia has been the most active country. Obviously, if there are three co-chairs, each of them should be active in this process. And this was reflected in the statement.
Q: Do you allow armed resolution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict?
A: Everybody knows that the most accurate way is to resolve the conflict peacefully, through negotiations, without using force. Undoubtedly, this is basics. And this is one of the targets of the joint statement adopted at the OSCE summit. And we agree with it. The Azerbaijani president makes every effort to this end, although the Armenian side has been dealing only with delaying the conflict settlement process for more than one year by giving different promises and undertaking various steps. One of the objectives of the statement is the peaceful settlement of the conflict. This statement reflects the position of presidents and co-chairs. In principle, this can be accepted as the position of the OSCE as well. But this does not mean that if the conflict is not resolved, we will not use other options to solve it.
We want the conflict to be resolved without force. We do not want to come to the principle of force.
Q: How would you comment on the extremely destructive speech by Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan at the OSCE summit?
A: The statement by the Azerbaijani President became a strong response to the statement of Armenian counterpart. At the same time, it became a strong message to Serzh Sargsyan and the heads of the OSCE member-countries that that is the situation and that it is necessary to get engaged solving the conflict seriously. That's all I want to say in this connection.
Q: Some Armenian media outlets present the OSCE summit as the success of the Armenian side. What do you think about it?
A: It is a cult trend now to distort reality to one's advantage. In fact it is far from reality. What has Armenia achieved at the summit? I don't understand this. Armenia has achieved nothing. It could not achieve anything. The Armenian leadership's adventurous policy led to this. The Armenian leadership and the Armenian people must know that this leads to the collapse of the country. Sooner or later Azerbaijan will return its lands, de-occupy them. No one should doubt about it.
Q: How can you comment on information, disseminated by the website WikiLeaks? Was this issue discussed at the OSCE summit? How does the world react to this information?
A: This was discussed at the meetings of delegations of various countries during the summit. The general opinion is that one must not express a serious attitude to information distributed by this website. In fact, there is no necessity in it. The website disseminates information with specific purpose. For example, someone wants to undermine relations between countries or harm the credibility of any individuals. The meetings confirmed that the materials were false and untrue.
There was certain information about Azerbaijan. I, as a person attending all the meetings, have already stressed that President Aliyev discusses bilateral relations and their development during the meetings. The third parties are not discussed at these meetings. Therefore, materials disseminated about Azerbaijan are wrong. I fully confirm this as I have participated in these meetings.
Other countries have reacted in the same way in this regard. Representatives of these countries also said that materials here are wrong.