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  • BAKU: Axis Information And Analysis:"Israeli MP Assisted Iran On The

    AXIS INFORMATION AND ANALYSIS: "ISRAELI MP ASSISTED IRAN ON THE CAUCASUS"
    By Sami Rozen

    Today, Azerbaijan
    May 31 2006

    Deputy Head of the Israeli Government, Minister of Foreign Affairs
    Tsipi Livni was going to visit Azerbaijan in the near future, but all
    of a sudden this week the preparations for her visit were terminated.

    This was announced by a well-informed diplomatic sources in Tel Aviv.

    Same sources said that a few weeks earlier Mark Sofer, Deputy Director
    General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, at first orally, and
    then in a written form, charged the Israeli ambassador to Baku Arthur
    Lenk with the preparation of Livni's visit. Lenk heads the embassy in
    Azerbaijan for less than a year, and a successful putting into effect
    of such an important event could noticeably raise his authority in the
    opinion of local officials and his Israeli colleagues. Especially with
    regard of the fact that since 1998, when the head of the government
    of that time, Benjamin Netanyahu, paid a visit to Baku, none of the
    Israeli prime-ministers or ministers did come any more to the capital
    of Azerbaijan. However, by the end of the month an instruction to stop
    preparations for Livni's arrival unexpectedly came to the embassy
    from the central apparatus of the foreign policy department. It was
    marked in the received notice that the visit is put off indefinitely,
    not specifying the reasons for such decision. Same diplomatic sources
    claim that the change of plans of the Foreign Ministry Head was
    dictated by ballyhoo caused by the trip to Azerbaijan of the member of
    the Israeli Knesset, Yosef Shagal, representing the Yisrael Beytenu
    (Israel Our Home) political party. Before his repatriation to Israel
    in 1990, Shagal (Shchegolev by his real name), lived in Azerbaijan,
    and that's why, following his election this March as a member of
    the Knesset he made his first visit abroad to this very country. He
    paid a visit to Baku on May 15-16, together with another Israeli
    member of parliament, and the representatives of Euro-Asian Jewish
    Congress. Statements made by Shagal at his meetings with journalists,
    have echoed not only in Azerbaijan, but have also drawn the attention
    of Armenian and Iranian establishment. According to some Israeli
    diplomats, this visit caused damage to the development of normal
    relationship of the Jewish state with all countries of the South
    Caucasus. Moreover, Shagal's public statements are being used now by
    the Iranian officials to strengthen the regional positions of Tehran
    that contradict to the American interests.

    At a press conference on May 15, the representative of the Israel Our
    Home party declared: "Israel supports a fair position of Azerbaijan
    in the Upper Karabakh conflict". Next day, in the interview to the
    online Day.Az edition he promised support of the Israeli parliament
    to achieve cancellation of the 907-th amendment of the US Congress,
    forbidding the American government to render aid to Azerbaijan,
    adopted in 1992 in connection with the conflict in Karabakh.

    Shagal spoke as though on behalf of all Israel and the Knesset
    in particular, and his words were interpreted by many Azerbaijan
    and Armenian journalists as the official position of the Jewish
    state. It was promoted by the circumstance that the majority of the
    South-Caucasian journalists do not particularly understand the twists
    and turns of the Israeli domestic policy. They did not go deep in
    such nuances as Shagal's absence of any political experience (that
    he himself recognizes) or his party's opposition status. For them
    it was only the essence of his statements that mattered. Actually,
    official Israel traditionally takes an emphatically neutral position
    in the issue of the Karabakh conflict. In parallel, the Ministry of
    Foreign Affairs of this country pays a great value to the development
    of normal relationships both with Azerbaijan, and with Armenia.

    Therefore, according to the above mentioned sources, Shagal's
    statements have caused a perceptible damage to the development of
    dialogue between Tel Aviv and Yerevan.

    Moreover, their wide publicity promoted strengthening of the
    pro-Iranian attitudes in Armenia, the growth of which has been recently
    marked on the background of a price increase for the Russian gas (April
    2006) and the rapproachement between Moscow and Ankara (2004-2005). Now
    the Iranian officials got an opportunity to claim at meetings with the
    Armenian representatives that the recent visits of the President of
    Azerbaijan to the United States and of the head of the Israeli Foreign
    Ministry to Turkey, as well as the performances of the Israeli member
    of parliament in Baku and disturbances in Southern Azerbaijan are all
    links of the same chain. According to Teheran's allegation, all these
    events have been testifying Washington's attempts to realize its old
    plans regarding the creation of a strategic alliance including the
    United States, Israel, Turkey and Azerbaijan, and directed against
    Iran and Armenia. Last months the leadership of the Islamic Republic
    has been aiming at strengthening its relations with Armenia to exclude
    the possibility of its cooperation with the United States in case of
    an American-Iranian military conflict.

    Not incidentally, the first foreign trip of the new Foreign Minister of
    Iran Manucher Mottaki was to Yerevan (February 2006). And it was there,
    when he had declared a real opportunity of participation of Armenia in
    the project of transportation of the Iranian gas to Europe. In turn,
    Washington has been making efforts to neutralize Tehran's activity on
    the Armenian direction. Against this background it becomes obvious,
    that the declarations of the Israeli member of parliament in Baku
    have served just to the interests of Iran.

    While in Baku, in dialogue with the journalists Yosef Shagal
    repeatedly raised a question of opening of the Azerbaijani embassy
    in Tel Aviv. Israeli diplomats are engaged in the solution of this
    problem from the very moment of establishment of mutual relations
    in 1992. Till now their efforts have brought no result because of
    Baku's fears to aggravate its complicated relations with Tehran, and
    also to lose political and economic support of the Arab countries,
    in particular, of the Persian Gulf monarchies.

    At last, during the April visit of the president Ilham Aliev to
    Washington, with active assistance of the American administration,
    it was possible to achieve progress in the given issue. The president
    of Azerbaijan gave his basic consent to opening of the diplomatic
    mission already in the near future. Now the Israeli diplomats are
    afraid that Shagal's attempt to show his own role in the solution of
    this issue has drawn an excessive attention to this theme not only
    in Azerbaijan, but also in the Muslim world as a whole.

    In fact, it is one thing when those are the representatives of
    the local Jewish community who express their opinion on the matter
    (that was noted recently), and absolutely different thing when similar
    statements are made by a member if the Israeli parliament, especially,
    speaking on the behalf of the official leadership of the country. In
    consequence, the opening of the Azerbaijani embassy in Tel Aviv might
    be now postponed indefinitely. Moreover, at the meetings with the
    officials in Baku Yosef Shagal put forward various offers concerning
    bilateral cooperation in the oil business.

    According to the diplomatic sources, the statements of the member
    of parliament on the issue have been based mostly on publications
    in the Internet. He, naturally, had no authority to discuss such
    matters with the officials of Azerbaijan. Particularly because the
    party represented by Shagal, is in opposition and has no relation to
    formation of the country's official policy, energy policy included.

    Diplomats say that Shagal has simply mislead his interlocutors, and
    this could only harm the further development of mutual cooperation...

    Our sources mark that, at the best, Yosef Shagal actually represents
    his own party. Though its leader Avigdor Liberman, the former head of
    the prime minister's office and former Minister of Infrastructures and
    Transports, has been known as a person tempted in the big politics. He
    played one of the key roles in development of relations of Israel
    practically with all the CIS countries, and never allowed himself to
    make such unequivocal statements in favor of one of the concflicting
    sides in the post-Soviet space. In this connection the representatives
    of the Israeli Foreign Ministry believe that Liberman had only
    general information on Shagal's trip. The same sources consider that
    in a much greater extent, declarations of the Israeli MP in Baku
    were coordinated with the leadership of Euro-Asian Jewish Congress,
    rather than with Israel Our Home party. The mentioned organization
    pursues its own interests, quite often depending on realtionships of
    its leaders-sponsors with the regional political elites, in Central
    Asia and the South Caucasus in particular. And those interests not
    always coincide with the interests of Israel.

    That fact eloquently testifies to it, that for all years of rule
    of Ariel Sharon (2001-2005), Alexander Mashkevich, the head of the
    Congress, with great efforts managed to meet him only a few times,
    and that, as a rule, for a few minutes, just for a joint photo
    session. Wherewith he had to achieve in every possible way the
    favor of the nominal chief Ashkenazi Rabbi of Israel Yona Metzger,
    to demonstrante at least somehow his "close relationship" with the
    Israeli establishment. Against this background, it is not surprising
    that after the trip of Yosef Shagal, the Israeli Minister of Foreign
    Affairs had to cancel her visit to Baku. Arrival of Tsipi Livni to
    Azerbaijan would have legitimized the MP's declarations. In this
    case Yerevan would have received weighty acknowledgement of the fears
    concerning the Israeli support of Baku in the Karabakh conflict. And
    it would become even more complex for Americans to keep Armenians
    from further rapproachement with Iran.

    President of Azerbajan Ilham Aliev himself is hardly interested to
    advertise so obviously the activization of contacts with the Israelis,
    which would inevitably be reflected in the relations with the largest
    Muslim states. In such simple a way the "Russian" member of the
    parliament managed to sensibly affect the course of the big-time
    politics. The only thing is that his "success" has hardly gone on
    advantage both of Israel and of the countries of the South Caucasus.

    URL: http://www.today.az/news/politics/26759.html
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