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  • Russian paper says Azerbaijan is set to agree to accept US bases

    Russian paper says Azerbaijan is set to agree to accept US bases

    Nezavisimaya Gazeta, Moscow
    3 Aug 05

    After several years of hesitation, official Baku is nevertheless
    inclined to site US military bases on Azerbaijani territory.
    Nezavisimaya Gazeta was told by an informed source in Azerbaijani
    security structures that several dozen US military instructors are
    already working in Azerbaijan, without advertising their presence.
    They have identified two facilities for future bases: one on the
    Apsheron peninsula, a 30-minute drive from Baku, and the other in
    the south of the republic, near the border with Iran.

    Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov's three-day visit to the
    United States, which ends today, has every chance of being epochal in
    resolving this tricky issue for Baku. Moreover, strange though it may
    seem, President Islom Karimov of Uzbekistan has played an important
    role in expediting the US-Azerbaijani accords. By demanding that the
    US Qarshi-Xonobod airbase, which the United States has been actively
    using since the autumn of 2001 in order to support its antiterrorist
    operation in Afghanistan, be removed from Uzbekistan's territory
    within 180 days, Karimov has forced the Pentagon to hastily seek
    another springboard and a new, more reliable and predictable ally,
    not necessarily in Central Asia, but at least nearby. Everything
    points to Azerbaijan becoming that ally.

    In the light of this, Islom Karimov has unwittingly given a downright
    lavish gift to his Azerbaijani colleague Ilham Aliyev by seriously
    strengthening his position in the long-standing bargaining with
    the Americans.

    As is well known, Washington has long been pushing the idea of
    siting a military base in Azerbaijan. There remains a minor detail
    - a political decision by President Aliyev to give the green light
    for implementation of the idea. An informed source in circles close
    to the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry told Nezavisimaya Gazeta on
    condition that he remain anonymous that the involvement of minister
    Mammadyarov in discussing this issue "could signify that the problem
    is switching to the political dimension". In the source's opinion,
    the situation is that "the political decision required by Washington
    is practically ripe, and President Aliyev will eventually agree to
    siting a US military contingent in the country." But not just for
    the sake of it, but in exchange for a lessening of US pressure on
    Aliyev over very sensitive issues for him concerning the observance of
    democratic standards in the upcoming November parliamentary elections.

    Admittedly, officially Baku is insisting that Elmar Mammadyarov, who
    hastily travelled across the ocean on 1 August after an unscheduled
    invitation from US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, is discussing
    in Washington "the widest range of issues, including the present
    status of the peace talks on settling the Karabakh conflict, regional
    problems, the development of interstate relations, and, finally,
    the upcoming parliamentary elections in Azerbaijan." However, most
    local analysts note that the official information about the visit
    carefully glosses over the point in the schedule of meetings relating
    to Elmar Mammadyarov's talks with the Pentagon leadership. However,
    analysts believe, the main subject of these talks will be not only
    general prospects for military cooperation between the two countries,
    but also an extremely specific issue - the possibility of transferring
    the US airbase from Uzbekistan to Azerbaijan. Evidence in favour of
    this theory is the fact that US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is
    expected to pay another working visit to Baku in the next few days.

    However, as before the previous visits to Baku by the Pentagon boss,
    Ramiz Malikov, the head of the Azerbaijani Defence Ministry's press
    service, is stating that he "possesses no such information". Touching
    on the prospects of the US military base being transferred from
    Uzbekistan to Azerbaijan, the head of the press service again
    confined himself to a routine remark: Such decisions, he said,
    are made by the country's political leadership, not the military
    department. Azerbaijani Deputy Foreign Minister Araz Azimov also
    essentially gave the same answer, telling journalists that Washington
    "has not yet made any" such proposal to official Baku.

    But this is not entirely true. During his "quiet and low-profile"
    visit back in April at Baku's Bina Airport Rumsfeld closely discussed
    the subject of an American military presence in Apsheron with his
    Azerbaijani counterpart, Safar Abiyev. It was clear even then that
    the Pentagon has very specific plans in this regard. Experts from
    Stratfor, the American-Israeli centre for strategic forecasts,
    claimed at the time that during the initial stage the US military
    contingent in Azerbaijan would act as "temporarily stationed mobile
    forces". They even named three local airbases where American fliers
    will be stationed - Kurdamir, Nasosnyy, and Qala. The airstrips
    there have been modernized in good time to NATO standards and are
    now capable of taking all types of aircraft.

    According to Stratfor's forecasters, the US bases in Azerbaijan will
    be small, and it is planned to change their contingent "according to
    US military needs in the region". According to the Pentagon's plans,
    the centre's experts noted, these forces "can be swiftly redeployed
    elsewhere to fulfil a task...and will be capable of handling several
    strategic missions".

    Uzeir Jafarov, an authoritative independent military expert in Baku,
    believes that the question of these mobile forces is now being
    studied in detail in the Azerbaijani foreign minister's talks at
    the Pentagon. "Until now the Azerbaijani leadership has managed by
    various means to avoid giving a specific answer to this proposal from
    Washington. But Tashkent's anti-American demarche is clearly spurring
    both sides to make urgent decisions," Uzeir Jafarov told Nezavisimaya
    Gazeta . In his view, "during the first stage the Americans could
    transfer to Baku their Qarshi-Xonobod airbase or part of it in the
    form of mobile groups and thereby really make Azerbaijan an important
    Pentagon bridgehead in the Afghan campaign".

    The likelihood of this development confirms that Azerbaijan has
    long been part of the coalition for the antiterrorist operation in
    Afghanistan. Admittedly, today this participation is confined to two
    spheres: Azerbaijan has allowed its Qala airfield near Baku to be
    used to refuel military aircraft transporting coalition humanitarian
    freight to Afghanistan, and then sent a squad of its servicemen to
    maintain order in Kabul.
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