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BAKU: Azerbaijan looks to U.S. as leader in democracy

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  • BAKU: Azerbaijan looks to U.S. as leader in democracy

    deseretnews.com
    Friday, October 1, 2004

    Azerbaijan looks to U.S. as leader in democracy

    By Mammad Baghirov
    For the Deseret Morning News

    The presidential campaign in the United States is being watched
    very closely in Azerbaijan - an oil-rich former Soviet republic,
    situated in the Caucasus region. And that is not surprising: Since the
    first year of its independence, Azerbaijan has been working to keep
    strong relations with the United States.

    Mammad Baghirov


    The first reason for this is democracy, as my country faces a
    period of transition. Another reason is the geopolitical environment -
    Azerbaijan borders Russia on the north and Iran on the south. A close
    relationship with the United States gives the Azerbaijani leadership
    an opportunity to be more independent in the dialogue with our
    powerful neighbors.

    As to the attitude toward the U.S. presidential candidates, the
    sympathy of many people in Azerbaijan does not lie with President
    Bush. And war in Iraq is the main reason for that feeling. People see
    that things are getting worse there. But, ironically, we also have
    military in Iraq because the Azerbaijani leadership decided to join
    the U.S.-led coalition. Many people are also concerned with the
    possibility of a military operation against our southern neighbor -
    Iran - and what might negatively influence the regional situation.

    John Kerry seems to be the more pragmatic leader. But there are
    also fears in my country that if Kerry is elected, the attitude of the
    United States toward Azerbaijan could change. One of the top-priority
    issues for my country is the restoration of territorial integrity. At
    the moment, 20 percent of Azerbaijani lands are occupied by a
    neighboring state - Armenia, which pursues the goals of increasing its
    territory by gathering "historical Armenian lands," which include part
    of the territory of Azerbaijan and Turkey. As a result of aggression
    of Armenia, thousands of people in my country were killed and wounded
    and hundreds of thousands became homeless. In 1994 a cease-fire was
    achieved and negotiations started. Unfortunately, they haven't brought
    any results up to now, but the good news is that they are
    continuing. And there is a large Armenian diaspora in the United
    States, which claimed support of Kerry's candidacy. That's made people
    in Azerbaijan cautious about Kerry.

    It seems to me that Thursday's presidential debate increased the
    chances of Bush winning the race. The American president looked much
    stronger than his opponent. Kerry's stance was, as clearly stressed by
    his opponent, "inconsistent."

    Watching the debate, frankly speaking, I was impressed by the
    atmosphere of openness and mutual respect between candidates. It's
    very difficult to imagine the current president in Azerbaijan running
    for another term and participating in such a debate with his
    opponents. Unfortunately, there is lack of respect for opposite views
    in my country, and that makes the political situation in Azerbaijan
    very tense.

    Azerbaijan is moving towards democracy, but this movement is
    still very slow. One reason: It's difficult to build democracy with
    those who ruled Azerbaijan in the Soviet period. They can say they are
    democrats, but in reality their way of thinking and doing things has
    nothing in common with this word. We adopted good laws, but often they
    don't work because of the resistance of such "democrats." People in my
    country, for instance, have the right to elect and be elected, but
    there are still big doubts about the fairness of the vote.

    Unfortunately, it was also the case during the last presidential
    elections in the United States when some American watchdog
    organizations were seriously concerned about the results. And it
    strengthened the standing of Azerbaijani "democrats," who used the
    example of the American elections of 2000 in debate with those who
    criticized the vote in my country. Now, upon harsh criticism of
    Azerbaijani elections, they could point to the American case and say
    that it's not only Azerbaijan that had problems during elections, but
    also the United States - the leading democratic state.

    Let us hope that the upcoming elections in the United States
    become really the best example of democracy at work.


    E-mail: [email protected]
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