The Washington Times hosts conference on US-Azerbaijan relations VIDEO
Washington, February 4, AZERTAC
The Washington Times has hosted a conference on the US-Azerbaijan relations.
The event saw speeches by Azerbaijan`s Ambassador to the United States Elin Suleymanov, Chairman of Azerbaijan`s Parliament Committee for International Relations and Interparliamentary Ties, head of the Azerbaijani delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) Samad Seyidov and MP Asim Mollazade.
“We are talking about the essence of the strategic vision of the United States of America, about the Southern Gas Corridor. This is not a corridor of gas and oil; this is a corridor of freedom,” said Samad Seyidov.
Ambassador Elin Suleymanov explained that without an overall strategy, the U.S. is wasting efforts to fix a crop of smaller problems in the region.
“The lack of clearly pronounced strategic outlook it’s basically working with immunity deficiency disorder. Because if you have no immunity, you come up with measles, or whatever. That strategic outlook is the immune system. If it doesn’t exist, all small the things pop up,” Mr. Suleymanov said.
“America, unfortunately today from the strategic point of view, has much less friends in the region than it had before,” Mr. Seyidov said. “That’s why we would like to see more attention to the region, more strategic vision to the region.”
“Unfortunately in the western world, especially from Europe, we see existence of these double standards. I’m talking about different approaches to the same kind of conflicts,” Mr. Seyidov said. “Nobody even thinks about sanctions against Armenia that did the same crime against a neighboring country.”
Mr. Seyidov argued that if Western nations continued to pick and choose which countries were subject to international law, then aggressors would continue to violate those laws without fear of retaliation.
“If we are thinking about normalizing relationships in the world, we should restore international law.” Mr. Seyidov said. “We should implement the same requirements for those who violated international law.
Mr. Suleymanov and Mr. Seyidov both stressed that U.S. allies in the region needed reassurance that the U.S. would continue to provide support against Armenia. The conflict has led to the deaths of tens of thousands of people since fighting began in the late 1980s, and displaced more than 1 million, many of whom have been living as refugees for more than 20 years.
“The bigger issue is if the United States is committed to its friends, if it works with them to reinforce the partnerships. Then they feel more secure and the discussions and conflicts are resolved in a much more peaceful manner,” Mr. Suleymanov said.
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