A RESPECTED DEBUTANT

The UN General Assembly has elected new non-permanent members of the Security Council for the next two years. During the elections, which were held by secret ballot, the new five - Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Chad, Chile and Lithuania - gained the required two-thirds of the vote of those in the assembly hall. Unlike Nigeria and Chile, who have each been elected to the Security Council four times, Lithuania, Saudi Arabia and Chad have not once been represented in this key structure of the UN.

The candidature of el-Riyadh, which acquired the least votes, caused a lot of dispute in relation to the kingdom's position over the crisis in Syria. Saudi Arabia openly supports the rebels who oppose Bashar Assad's government by supplying money and weapons. However, Syria's permanent representative at the UN Bashar Ja'afari said that "one should not be hung up" about el-Riyadh's victory.

So, on 1 January 2014, Azerbaijan, Guatemala, Morocco, Pakistan and Togo, who were elected to the SC two years ago, are due to be replaced as non-permanent members of the UN Security Council.  During the course of the year Australia, Argentina, Luxemburg, Ruanda and South Korea will remain in the Council.

The Security Council is the main body of the UN which, according to its charter, is responsible for maintaining peace and international security. It is run by a chairman who is elected on a monthly basis by the members of the SC. This office is currently occupied by Azerbaijan's permanent representative at the United Nations, Aqsin Mehdiyev.

Although Azerbaijan will fully relinquish its place as a non-permanent member of the UNSC at the beginning of next year, it is already possible to sum up the results of the country's first participation in history in the world's No 1 structure. Azerbaijan's election in October 2010 with the support of 155 countries as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council was one of Azerbaijan's most significant successes in its relatively short history of independence. Participating along with such permanent members of the UN Security Council as the USA, China, Russia, Great Britain and France in this most important structure was recognition of the great respect that Azerbaijan has won in the international arena.

In its two years as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council the young republic not only assumed an active position in the discussions in New York of problems of regional and global importance, but also took the chair twice in the course of a month. That said, Azerbaijan did not melt into the background, as they say, against the great and the good of world politics, but it will be remembered for putting forward important initiatives contributing to the stabilization of the situation in many problem areas of the world. Specifically, during its chairmanship in May 2012 Azerbaijan held a session of the UNSC on one of the most topical problems of the world today - international terrorism and the threats it poses for global peace and security. The debate, which was held under the chairmanship of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, was attended by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, who spoke highly of this initiative.

Along with this, Azerbaijan's election to the UN Security Council aroused hopes of many people in the country of the chance of making rapid progress in a settlement to the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict, or more precisely the implementation of the four resolutions which this organization adopted in 1993 on Nagornyy-Karabakh. After all, according to chapter VII of the UN Charter, resolutions adopted by the Security Council are binding for all the member-states of the UN, and failure to fulfil them could draw sanctions and the use of military force.

However, clear-headed people realized from the outset that the status of a non-permanent member in the UN Security Council would scarcely allow Azerbaijan to achieve the fulfilment of these resolutions. And it is unlikely that Azerbaijan set itself this goal. Nor did it believe that the conscience of the world powers would be aroused from the reproaches, say, in the case of Libya where it took just a few hours to carry out a resolution in the UNSC, whereas in the case of the occupation of one fifth of the territory of Azerbaijan there has been little to show for four resolutions and a couple of dozen years.

In other words, it has been clear that until the strong of this world show any real interest in the Armenian army's withdrawal from Azerbaijani territory it will be impossible to achieve the implementation of these documents. However, this does not mean that Azerbaijan does not intend to use the new and very prestigious platform to remind the international community of its forgotten obligations. Azerbaijan said as much at the UNSC at its first opportunity. Whether the subject was the struggle against international terrorism, humanitarian disasters in Asia and Africa or the crisis in Syria, Azerbaijan invariably reminded the audience of Armenia's military crimes against the Azerbaijani population, the millions of Azerbaijani refugees and forced migrants who have been deprived of the opportunity to return to their homes, and the illegal settlement of the occupied lands by Syrian Armenians.

At the same time, the situation with the non-fulfilment of the UNSC resolutions on Karabakh should not be dramatized, especially as during its work among the permanent members of this structure Azerbaijan has seen for itself their scaled approach to when these resolutions might be fulfilled immediately and when they might drag on for decades. The 20-year old resolutions 822, 853, 874 and 884 have by no means been left under a layer of dust in the UN archives. Today, as a result of the work of Azerbaijani diplomats, other prestigious organizations have been referring to these most important legal documents in expressing their position on Nagornyy-Karabakh. For example, quite recently, on 23 October, the European parliament, at a plenary session, adopted a resolution in which it spoke of the unacceptability of the occupation by one member-country of the EU's "Eastern Partnership" programme of a part of the territory of another participant in this programme. In paragraph 16 of this resolution the European Parliament recalls that occupation is a violation of the fundamental principles and aims of the "Eastern Partnership", and speaks of the need for a settlement of the Nagornyy-Karabakh conflict based on the resolutions adopted in 1993 by the UN Security Council, and also the basic principles of the OSCE's Minsk Group, which are reflected in the joint statement of the leaders of the mediator-countries of 10 July 2009 in L'Aquila. 

"A resolution adopted by the European Parliament stresses for the first time the need for a settlement to the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict based on UN Security Council resolutions demanding the immediate, unconditional and complete withdrawal of the occupying forces from Azerbaijan's captured territories and the provision of the territorial integrity, sovereignty and inviolability of the borders of the Azerbaijani Republic. This resolution once again demonstrates that the international community supports a settlement of the conflict based on existing resolutions of the UNSC," the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry states, welcoming the resolution.

It will be recalled that in its previous resolutions the European Parliament has spoken about the need for the withdrawal of Armenia's armed forces from the occupied Azerbaijani territories, their return under Baku's control and the return of Azerbaijani refugees and forced migrants.

There is no doubt that the status of a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council has enhanced Azerbaijan's international standing many times over. Moreover, during its participation in Security Council sessions Azerbaijan has shown that it has no intention of taking its seat of honour just for the prestige. The republic has played a most active part in deciding problems of international security and has been a donor to countries suffering from natural and humanitarian disasters. At the same time, Azerbaijan has used its status to ensure that its own problems are also kept at the centre of attention of the world's public. When the new candidates for non-permanent members of the UN are next considered Azerbaijan will surely no longer be seen as a "dark horse", but as a country which has proved to be a reliable partner in tackling problems of global importance.

Returning to the subject of the UNSC resolutions on Karabakh, it has to be said that their fulfilment is not the utopia that many people believe. This is only possible given certain conditions which Azerbaijan still has a lot to do before they are created, especially as there already exists the example of the recent past when a country with a Russian military base on its territory has needed the enforcement of a UNSC resolution. I am referring to Syria and Resolution 1559. Based on this resolution, in 2005 the UN and the USA, virtually in the form of an ultimatum, demanded that Damascus withdraw from Lebanon not even a regular army but a (peacekeeping!) contingent numbering about 35,000 men. And Syria yielded to this demand. This pressure on Damascus was even supported by its ally Russia, which has its own military base on Syrian territory.

 So there you have a precedent. All that is left is to create the conditions whereby the withdrawal of Armenia's armed forces from Azerbaijani territory would meet the interests of the USA and the UN. In such cases the opposition of the Armenian lobby and (as the example of Syria has shown) and the pleading of a strategic ally would be useless. One recalls the words of Winston Churchill: "Britain has no allies, only interests…"