LINKS Executive Director Dennis Sammut spoke with the Azerbaijani media on the side of the international conference: Azerbaijan 2008: Paths to modernisation. His comments were carried on the main evening news bulletins of all the national news channels.
In an exclusive interview with day.az news portal Dennis Sammut spoke about how economic factors can contribute to the solution of the Karabakh conflict. This is the full text of the interview:
What do you think about the opinion that economic achievements of Azerbaijan may influence the resolution of the Karabakh problem?
It is true that Azerbaijan's economy is strengthening owing to oil revenues. Further success of the Azerbaijani economy will depend on the rational use of oil funds and development of non-oil sector. The non-oil economic sector should be developed on the basis of a knowledge based economy making full use of Azerbaijan’s human potential. In Azerbaijan the population is among the youngest in the region. This young population can be tought the necessary skills so that it can contribute to the further development of the national economy.
Azerbaijan may influence the Karabakh conflict settlement by means of its economic strength only if it decides to pursue regional economic cooperation. The decision, which the Azerbaijani government will have to make in the near future is whether or not it will engage in economic interaction with Armenia. This decision is a great dilemma, because how do you engage in economic co-operation with a country with which you are technically still at war. I understand that this is a difficult decision, but this is a decision, which the government will have to take.
Thus, the simple answer to your question is: "Yes, Azerbaijan can use its economic potential to leverage its position on the Karabakh issue". Yet, at the moment it is not doing that because it has opted for a different tactic, so only time will tell if this will happen.
Some experts state that it is too late because the largest economic projects with Azerbaijan's participation such as the BTC pipeline, are already completed or are close to being completed and Armenia's participation in these projects is not envisioned.
This is not true. In this sense, it is not too late. The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan project is something different. It is not an economic project as such, it is an infrastructural project, intended for oil transportation by the safest, fastest and most reliable route. There are however a lot of other projects which will benefit greatly if they are implemented on a regional scale.
This will require restoration of regional cooperation and this can only happen with a lot of effort. There are many different ways in which this can be achieved and this is what needs to be discussed at this stage.
The first meeting of President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev and newly elected President of Armenia Serzh Saskissyan is to be held soon. What is expected from this meeting?
I think this will allow two people get acquainted with each other and learn positions of the opposite side. I do not think this will take too long. There is a need to make the negotiation process more flexible to get a chance for success. This does not mean that the sides should give up their principled positions. Within these principled positions there is still some space for compromise.
Don't you think that the succession of the political course in Armenia makes a breakthrough in the resolution process impossible?
I am not the one who does not believe in the resolution of this conflict. I believe that the problem has a solution. In order to find this solution we should look at the problem from several approaches
Some people consider that the problem lies in the origin of the current and former Presidents of Armenia. They say that a politician born in Karabakh and coming to power on the high tide of the Karabakh conflict can not make any concessions on the Karabakh issue. What do you think about this statement?
I do not think that this is the case. It is enough to recall the experience of Northern Ireland. Everybody in Northern Ireland for several decades thought that it would be the moderate politicians who will bring peace. In fact it was the hardline politicians such as Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams who finally came to realise that peace was inevitable and today the two radical parties in northern Ireland are in government together.
I do not consider that Karabakh origin of Serzh Sarkissyan somehow is a proof of his inability to see what is good for Armenia and Karabakh, which is a peaceful resolution of the conflict, opening the way for the restoration of the development of the whole region. If the Armenian President sees this, it means his origin, no matter whether he is from Karabakh or Yerevan or Sevan is not important. The important thing is that the Presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia find a way to break the present impasse and move towards the peaceful resolution of the conflict.
