BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 20. Austrian online newspaper dasfazit.at has published an article with the following headline: “We consider “Eastern Partnership” as an opportunity for strengthening the cooperation with the EU – President Ilham Aliyev”. The article is dedicated to the speech of Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev during the reception of the delegation led by Dirk Schuebel, Special Envoy of the EU for Eastern Partnership.
During his speech, which is cited in the article, the President described the cooperation between Azerbaijan and the EU as “very broad” and mentioned that Azerbaijan was very supportive and participated actively in different events, including summits within the Eastern Partnership. He also added that it is time to modernize it and review what has been done.
It is also mentioned in the article, that the President noted the fact that Azerbaijan in contrast with the other participating countries remains the only country that “joined none of the formats”. He noted that the main reason for that was the foreign policy that came from the economic performance, economic stability, political stability, and the liberation of the country’s territories, and that was based on pragmatism and “was targeted”.
Also, according to the President, which are quoted by the publication, the main goal of Azerbaijan's participation in this program once again becomes obvious: the program represents an additional opportunity, primarily for strengthening the cooperation with the EU, and “to have additional mechanism of cooperation with European Commission”, in particular. Moreover, Azerbaijan considers this platform as the basis for the agreement discussions with the EU.
However, according to the words of the President that the newspaper cited, the work on the agreement “is moving successfully but slowly”, because of the presence of unsolved issues that are related to the economy, trade, and so on, that require “political will from both sides”.
“There are certain concerns in Azerbaijan, because any agreement which we signed or plan to sign must give additional benefit to us and to our partners. So, we cannot sign something which in a midterm or long term can create certain economic difficulties,” cites the newspaper the head of state.
The article says that, talking about Armenian-Azerbaijani relations, President Ilham Aliyev noted, that he considers current talks of the Armenian side about peace to be “a kind of manipulation”, since after the war Azerbaijan proposed a peace agreement, but Armenia did not respond to this proposal. The Head of state noted the fact that the peace proposal from the side that defeated the enemy and expelled him from their lands is “one of the probably unique cases in the world history”.
“We offered a kind of framework that famous five principles, was us who advocated for establishing a commissions on delimitation, it was us who was trying to find a ground for normalization of relations. Armenia was very reluctant in the first phases of the process. Now, they talk about peace. But what do they mean by peace? We do not actually understand. Because our position is very clear. […] we need to have two tracks- Armenian-Azerbaijani normalization process and also issues related to Armenian minority in Azerbaijan, in Karabakh with respect to their rights and security,” the newspaper cites the words of the President.
Touching upon issues related to the Armenian minority, the President noted that Azerbaijan is going to resolutely stop all attempts to include this issue in the peace agreement. “It is not possible. And we will not agree on that. […] We are ready to talk about that with Armenians who live in Karabakh, not with those who have been sent from Moscow hiding in their pockets billions of stolen money from Russian people, like person called Vardanyan who was transferred from Moscow there with a very clear agenda. But we are ready to talk to those people in Karabakh who live there and who wants to live there,” the President of Azerbaijan noted.
President Ilham Aliyev in his speech called the official persons of Armenia to refrain from “dangerous rhetoric” toward Azerbaijan, referring to the recent statements of the Armenian officials where they compared Azerbaijan to ISIS and Al-Qaeda.
“First, because they acted as ISIS and Al-Qaeda. Ambassadors of EU visited the liberated territories, Armenians did the same what was done by ISIS and Al-Qaeda with respect to historical and religious heritage. It was not us, it was them. So they committed acts of terror, they committed genocide, they destroyed our mosques, not us,” the President said.
According to the President, if there are no external interference and attempts to block this process, then the process of the regulation is going to be more dynamic. For this, a consensus is required. The consensus between Azerbaijan, the EU, the USA, and Russia. As the President said, “Those countries and the institution, which Azerbaijan sees as those who can be helpful”.