Ilham Aliyev: "Azerbaijan does not aim to become a member of the EU"
Ilham Aliyev on the European Union
“What do we really need in Azerbaijan? We need firm, verified guarantees that there will be no more attempts at revanchism by Armenia,” Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said. On the EU: “Azerbaijan does not set in its foreign policy concept the goal of becoming a member of the EU – for very pragmatic reasons, because we will never be allowed there.”
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With the participation of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, the forum “Karabakh: Returning Home after 30 Years. Achievements and Difficulties”, was organized by ADA University together with the Center for Analysis of International Relations.
On the peace treaty with Armenia
In his speech, Aliyev noted that Azerbaijan was the initiator of negotiations on the peace treaty.
“We said: ‘We need to conclude a peace treaty’. We said, ‘We need delimitation commissions.’ It was not Armenia that said this. It wasn’t Brussels that did it. It wasn’t Washington, Paris or Moscow that did it. It was done by us. This is how the process was launched. Then we saw that nothing was happening. So we decided to develop the principles of the peace agreement. We developed them and sent them to Armenia. And again there was silence. And then we made them public. We made public those famous five principles, which Armenia now seems to be ready to accept. If they had accepted them or basically accepted them three years ago, there would have been no need for an anti-terrorist operation.
There were five or six exchanges of comments on the original Azerbaijani draft document. Armenian comments, Azerbaijani comments, disagreements, agreements. Foreign Ministers met several times in different places. We sent the last package of comments on September 11. If we elaborate a little bit on what the peace agreement is, it is a document of 6-7 pages at most, consisting of less than 20 points. It took Armenia 70 days to consider such a small document and respond to us. And that was after the Azerbaijani Foreign Minister publicly stated that we have been waiting for two months, why is Armenia not responding?
So, this shows that the party delaying the process is not Azerbaijan, but Armenia. Why did they delay? I don’t know if it was their own decision or if they were advised by their new friends from some European capitals. I don’t know, I can only suspect. But it is a fact that the comments we sent on September 11, we received on November 21. So now our Foreign Ministry is evaluating those comments, and we will send them back.
I think a meeting of foreign ministers after that would be appropriate. Now we see that we are not close to consensus yet, but many important issues that Armenia insisted on in the beginning do not exist now. They do not exist on the ground, and they do not exist in their comments. I don’t want to go into details, because you understand that this is a confidential document.”
On guarantees for peace
“What do we really need in Azerbaijan? We need firm, verified guarantees that there will be no more attempts at revanchism in Armenia. Why do we need this? Because we know what is happening in Armenia, and we also know that Armenia has very bad advisers in some European capitals.
Even without mentioning this capital, I think everybody understands who I’m talking about. So, this could be a trigger. So far these are provocative councils, but we don’t exclude that they will turn into destructive councils. So, we should have a guarantee that there will be no more war between the two countries, that Armenia fully accepts the situation, and that they are sincere about the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan. They should forget about the former “Nagorno-Karabakh Republic” and approach the border delimitation issues constructively. In fact, this is peace,” Aliyev said.
On relations with the European Union
Responding to a question from President of the Foundation for Strategic and International Studies of Georgia Ekaterina Metreveli, the Azerbaijani President emphasized that Azerbaijan wishes Georgia success and congratulates it on its new step forward and EU candidate status:
“We understand, of course, that this is a process. We know that some countries have been waiting for this for many years. I don’t want to mention Turkey here, because in its case the approach was totally unacceptable and unfair to keep Turkey away from Europe, despite the fact that it has been a candidate for so many years. But even the Balkan countries still have to wait. And as far as I see the situation now in the context of the discussions on the European track, there is no consensus on enlargement. But this is my observation. Anyway, I wish you success!
When Georgia becomes a member of the EU, I am sure nothing will change in our relations, also in terms of energy cooperation. You know that Europe is the main destination for our energy resources, be it oil or gas. The European Energy Commission has called Azerbaijan a “pan-European gas supplier”, and this is true.
Many countries receive our gas. Most of them are European. There will be even more countries, because we are now not only in the process of negotiations, but we are also establishing physical links between European countries, with some of them already negotiating. So nothing will change.
I think that although Azerbaijan does not set in its foreign policy concept the goal of becoming a member of the EU – for very pragmatic reasons, because we will never be allowed there. And the reason for that is very clear, and we understand it. We live in the real world, not the virtual world. So, if you’re not allowed in, why would you knock on the door? You’ll only make the homeowner angry and only humiliate yourself if they don’t want to let you in. We found a way to build a relationship.”
About Borrell and Metsola’s statements
In his speech, Aliyev touched upon recent statements by EU Foreign Minister Josep Borrell and European Parliament President Roberta Metsola:
“Mr. Borrel’s recent statements are absolutely counterproductive. And his statement yesterday about 150,000 Armenians leaving Karabakh is a lie. I regret that such an experienced European diplomat is lying. Even the Armenians themselves said that 100,000 people left Karabakh, not 150,000. If Mr. Borrel continues in the same vein, in a month he will say that there were 200,000. Depending on what dreams he has. But again, not only these manipulations with figures, but also accusations against Azerbaijan of what we did not do are absolutely unacceptable. It is all the more strange that his country, as our Foreign Ministry has already stated, has itself suffered from separatism. So how can he defend separatists? It is very strange.
In one of my conversations with Mr. Charles Michel, President of the European Council, I told him that Mrs. Metsola, President of the European Parliament, said after our anti-terrorist operation that relations in the gas sphere and gas contracts with Azerbaijan should be terminated. I told Mr. Michel that she probably does not know how these cases are conducted, because if one of the parties terminates a contract, it has to pay a fine. First, she should ask those who are in charge of the European Union’s energy policy how the EU asked Azerbaijan to help it last year with a large volume of gas for Europe because of reduced supplies from Russia, and how we responded to that request. Unfortunately, we have such people. I would say populist leaders in Europe, such as Mr. Borrell, such as Madame Metsola. I always prefer to speak openly because I completely disagree with their policy and their attitude towards Azerbaijan because it is unfair and it is not in the interest of the European Union and European institutions. But if we talk about the European Commission in general, of course we have excellent relations and we value these relations very much. They are of strategic importance and not only energy, not only gas, not only oil, soon it will be hydrogen. You know very well the project with Georgia, Azerbaijan, Romania and Hungary. So, this is a game changer. And we are already on the threshold of realization.
Very soon we will receive the final feasibility study report and hopefully start physical construction. That and transportation and communications. People like Josep Borrell only need to look at a map and see where Azerbaijan is. And if they want to be active in Central Asia – and they do, we can see it from the movements in both directions – how can they bypass Azerbaijan? Are they going to contact Central Asian countries through Iran or Russia? Or maybe they have wings? So they should think about this before making such statements.”
