Azerbaijan, Baku, 10 July /Trend, U.Sadikhova/
There is no other former Soviet republic like Azerbaijan that so quickly and so successfully transformed itself from the Soviet system to Western systems, said General Ephraim Sneh, former deputy defense minister of Israel.
"I think that in the Caucasian region, Azerbaijan is an icon of progress and modernity," Sneh said in an interview with Trend by telephone, commenting on the anti-Azerbaijani article, recently posted on a blog site Afui Hirsch of the British publication The Guardian.
"If you look at two major parameters of democracy - opposition press and parliamentary opposition, in Azerbaijan you have both of them. This is the answer to these claims against Azerbaijan," said Sneh, who held several ministerial posts in the Israeli government.
The Israeli general described the article in The Guardian as "a perfidy and double-standards".
According to him, maybe except the Baltic's, but in this region of former Soviet Union, there is no comparison to Azerbaijan in the sense of democracy, progress and modernity.
"There is no comparison: you can not compare the democracy with traditions of hundred years of democracy with a new-born democracy of 20 years old," Sneh said.
In the social economic side, Azerbaijan is one of the countries where the wealth of energy is spread broadly to the people, the Israeli general said.
Such publishing appears in the Western media as a result of the active work of the Armenian lobby in the West, said Sneh.
"Such publishing appears in the Western media because there is a strong lobby which works against Azerbaijan. Lobby of the rivals from West, those who conquered the 20 percent of Azeri territory," Sneh said.