Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 26
By Samir Ali – Trend:
The Russian audience always showed interest in modern Azerbaijan and various aspects of its policy and this interest is growing day by day, editor-in-chief of the Baku xeber newspaper, political analyst Aydin Guliyev told Trend on Dec. 26.
Stressing that Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has recently given an interview to the Russia-24 TV channel, Guliyev added that the president’s statement will be interesting to the multi-million Russian TV viewers.
"President Aliyev fully used the opportunities to inform the Russian public and the country's elite about the success achieved by Azerbaijan, as well as the upcoming economic and political tasks,” he said.
“The president’s interview to the Russian TV channel is extremely important from the point of view of the country's propaganda,” Guliyev said. “Russian TV viewers heard Azerbaijan’s concept.”
“The opinions of Russian officials and the Azerbaijani president about the upcoming changes in the process of settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in 2019 fully coincide and this was interesting for the Russian public,” he said.
The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.
The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.
He stressed that the Russian society was once again convinced of the irreversibility of the intensification of the Azerbaijan-Russia relations and that the Azerbaijan-Russia tandem is crucial for the calm and sustainable development of the region.
“The Russian society has received new and valuable information about Azerbaijan,” Guliyev added.
“The information that Azerbaijan has closer relations with the absolute majority of the Eurasian Economic Community member-states than Armenia has become new and important for the Russian public and political circles,” he said.
“The information that Azerbaijan is the only country actively participating in the implementation of the North-South and East-West transit corridors was also valuable for Russian analysts,” Guliyev said.