POLITICS
The Washington Times: Time for consistent U.S. policy toward Azerbaijan in a post-Soviet world
Baku, January 30, AZERTAC
The Washington Times has issued an article headlined “Time for consistent U.S. policy toward Azerbaijan in a post-Soviet world”.
Written by Alex Vatanka, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute and at the Jamestown Foundation, the article says: “At a time when the direction of America’s foreign policy is generating abundant global bewilderment, policymakers in Congress and the administration must be mindful not to alienate more allies and increase doubt and distrust of America’s promises.
Azerbaijan is one of those countries. Authorities in Baku are increasingly speculating about Washington’s commitment to its strategic allies and its own stated values.
Since its independence upon the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan has considered the United States as one of its principal strategic partners. This conscious, but at times hazardous, choice to turn to Washington was, from the outset, rooted in a belief in American strength and a hope in Washington’s fairness in mediating among disputing nations. It was a conviction that drove successive Azerbaijani governments to accept American arbitration in Baku’s conflict with neighboring Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh, an Azerbaijani region occupied by Armenian forces since the end of a war in 1994.
For 20 years Azerbaijan has patiently stuck to this belief in America as the foolproof arbiter that will somehow and someday help engineer a peaceful resolution to this frozen conflict in the South Caucasus. Increasingly, however, the Azerbaijanis question whether the United States prioritizes short-term goals over long-term objectives of peacemaking and the upholding of key American values, including respect for the territorial integrity and sovereignty of nations.”