Interfax, Armenia
Oct 26 2013
Azeri presidential official dismisses U.S. criticism of presidential elections
BAKU. Oct 26
The U.S. Department of State’s and the U.S. mission to the OSCE’s
position on the recent presidential elections in Azerbaijan causes
perplexity and harms relations between Baku and Washington, Azeri
presidential chief of staff Ramiz Mehdiyev said.
“We understand all complexity of the situation in which European
policymakers have found themselves under pressure from certain circles
in Washington. However, this can’t justify the double standards being
applied to Azerbaijan,” Mehdiyev said in commenting to Interfax on the
fact that the U.S. is continuing to urge international institutions to
accept a critical report on the elections by the OSCE Office for
Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), and the Department
of State has expressed its disagreement with PACE’s positive opinion
on the elections.
“I believe that, by taking such nearsighted steps, particularly the
attempts to put pressure on PACE’s and the European Parliament’s
positions regarding the elections in Azerbaijan, some Department of
State officials harm partnership existing between the U.S. and
Azerbaijan,” he said.
While OSCE PA observer mission’s head and OSCE Chairperson-in-Office
Leonid Kozhara, head of the European Parliament mission Pino Arlacchi,
the European Union mission and members of other international
organizations have positively judged the elections, “the U.S. is
promoting and lobbying knowingly false positions compromising such an
important stage in Azerbaijan’s democratic development as presidential
elections.”
“The forced changing of positions by European institutions dictated
from the outside causes our deep regret. It turns out that the level
of Azerbaijan’s partnership and cooperation with the European Union
countries should depend on whims and preferences of certain circles in
the U.S. Department of State. This is also obvious from the way some
officials in Washington are not ceasing attempts to impose the opinion
of a minority (the OSCE/ODIHR and the U.S. Department of State) on a
majority (the OSCE, the European Parliament and PACE), even though the
majority has unanimously noted positive progress, freedom, and
transparency of the election process in Azerbaijan,” Mehdiyev said.
There can be no ideal elections anywhere, including in the West, “but
exaggeration or deliberate distortion of facts based on someone’s
groundless and partial positions is absolutely unacceptable,” he said.
Mehdiyev pointed out that biased statements by some U.S. officials
also go against the position of U.S. monitoring missions. He pointed
out that the U.S. alone had 123 authoritative observers monitoring the
elections in Azerbaijan, and a lot of representatives and senators
welcomed progress that Azerbaijan made in the October 2013 elections.
“Despite this, the U.S. Department of State’s and the U.S. mission to
the OSCE’s position on the elections in Azerbaijan is perplexing, to
put it mildly. Some political circles in the U.S. have still not given
up the idea of isolating Azerbaijan. But they have been isolated
themselves. And in order to somehow vindicate their plans, they are
putting pressure on the European Parliament, the Council of Europe and
other international organizations by forcing them to revise their
positive opinion on the results of the elections in Azerbaijan. But
they can’t understand that even if they revise their previous
judgments, this cannot change anything,” he said.
“The international community represented by an overwhelming majority
of heads of state and government have congratulated President Ilham
Aliyev on his decisive victory in the presidential elections in
October 2013,” Mehdiyev said. “And this is a serious political fiasco
of the forces that have developed the habit of using international
organizations as a tool to put pressure on individual states in
pursuing their own interests,” he said.
“These forces should understand that the double standard policy as a
method of pressure is no longer bringing them political dividends. On
the contrary, this policy is working to the detriment of those who are
continuing to revel in their primary role in world politics,” he
added.
Mehdiyev quoted veteran U.S. diplomat Zbigniew Brzezinski as saying in
his speech at the Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced
International Studies on October 22, which was attended, in
particular, by such prominent U.S. policymakers as Madeleine Albright,
Stephen Hadley, Robert Gates, Brent Scowcroft, and others, that the
U.S. should pursue a consistent policy and be utterly careful as
concerns intervention in other countries’ affairs, as consequences of
excessive intervention may be disastrous. “I believe you can’t
formulate it better,” Mehdiyev said.
In analyzing recent events in European policy, Mehdiyev mentioned what
he sees as the key ones.
“First of all, it is necessary to recall positive things, namely the
European Parliament’s resolution, which says that the
Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict must be resolved in compliance with the
UN Security Council resolutions demanding that the Armenian occupation
forces be immediately, unconditionally and fully withdrawn from the
occupied Azerbaijani territory and that Azerbaijan’s territorial
integrity, sovereignty, and border inviolability be ensured,” he said.
“This resolution signals a serious approach by a number of European
structures toward the occupation of Azeri lands. This is just another
indication of a failure of Armenian foreign policy based on an attempt
to misinterpret the causes of the conflict and justify the occupation
of another state,” he said.
Mehdiyev also quoted President Ilham Aliyev as saying in his inaugural
speech that “the position of an absolute majority of the international
community is unambiguous.”
“Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity is beyond any doubt, and this
conflict must be settled only within the framework of territorial
integrity,” he said.
“However, along with this generally impartial step, we are witnessing
disagreements in European politics on the principles for the triumph
of which the numerous international political institutions were set up
in Europe’s political environment,” Mehdiyev said.
“It is easy to see that the financial and economic crisis in Europe
has grown into a social and democratic crisis. This is exactly what
can explain the growing crisis of confidence in the EU on the whole,
inadequacy of its approach to political events, the loss of its own
orientation, and so on. The common political prejudice in the
OSCE/ODIHR’s and U.S. Department of State’s statements on the
elections in Azerbaijan is among the factors demonstrating all
complexity of the situation,” he said.
“We had known even before the elections that the OSCE PA, under
pressure from the outside, had to reverse its decision to send
observers to Azerbaijan on an absolutely farfetched pretext. Later on,
after numerous appeals from Azerbaijan, OSCE PA observers took part in
the elections and highly praised the organization of the voting
process. In the European parliamentarians’ view, the elections were
transparent and free, which indicated just another step on the way of
the country’s democratization,” Mehdiyev said.
“I would like to point out in conclusion that we are interested in
further developing cooperation with our European partners. We will
continue to strictly adhere to principles of neighborliness and
equitable partnership,” he said.
va
From: A. Papazian