Following strategic interests

-You took part in the first MGIMO alumni forum held in Baku a short while ago. What can you say about the event and your visit to Baku in general?

- I think it was a unique forum which marked the beginning of a new intellectual movement that brings together people from many countries - to be more precise, thousands of people from over 30 countries. The movement, which was launched in Azerbaijan, will go down in history as the beginning of a new road towards a new society, a new brotherhood. We were particularly delighted that the forum was organized by the most prominent MGIMO graduate, the current president of Azerbaijan.

It was my first visit to Baku. I took the opportunity and wandered around the streets and noticed the magnificent progress your country and the capital has achieved. All this happened thanks to Ilham Aliyev, one of the greatest MGIMO graduates.

Azerbaijan is a prosperous country now and I am very happy for the Azerbaijani people. Participants in the forum have had an opportunity to see for themselves that the country is a role model of prosperity in the post-Soviet space.

I think the president's speech at the forum was exceptionally interesting and outlined the priorities of our future work. We discussed various issues in the context of current global developments and changing mindsets. Many people are now discarding old tendencies, schools of thought and concepts. We discussed the current state of affairs in the world and tried to look into the future. I think this will be the major focus of our work from now on.

- There has been a lot of talk recently about a certain cooling in Azerbaijan-Russia relations. Commentators recall Russia's withdrawal from the Qabala radar station and a number of other factors. However, in a recent interview to Rossiya24, President Ilham Aliyev made it clear that there are no unresolved issues between the two countries and that nobody can force Azerbaijan to do something against Russia as a strategic partner. What do you think about current relations between the two countries?

- I do not think it is wise to concentrate on the negative. The union of 15 republics fell apart very suddenly and caught many people unprepared. This left a lot of unanswered questions which have not been addressed to this day. The ongoing conflict between your country and Armenia is one such issue. We all support the resolution of the conflict. Therefore, such problems will keep emerging. Even brotherly nations sometimes encounter difficulties. In this sense, the most important thing is to address the situation (despite the serious problems) using friendly methods.

I am not concerned about the relations between our two nations. They are stable. All countries experience difficulties - the USA, the EU, China, Japan and many others. Therefore, the most important thing is to look forward and believe that there is a way out and eventually there will be a solution. I think that Russia-Azerbaijan relations are a model of positive relations between two countries. The peoples are well disposed towards each other. The general state of affairs is positive and nobody should be worried about the fact that some problems occasionally emerge.

- Why then has Russia historically been more supportive to monoethnic Armenia while relations with Azerbaijan, which has the largest ethnic Russian and Russian-speaking community in the South Caucasus, have tended be less close.

- You have now touched on one of the most acute problems in our policy. I know that Russia does not tend to place relations with Armenia above relations with Azerbaijan. Moscow has no such intention. Perhaps this is how it seems in individual cases. However, I am absolutely certain that there is no pro-Armenian line in our policy in this region. Perhaps something has been misinterpreted or else some people said something unflattering in this respect, but I personally cannot recall a single statement that suggests that Russia prefers relations with Armenia to the relations with Azerbaijan. Strategically, there is no such thing. Let me assure you that this is not true. In politics different people adhere to different positions but strategically speaking there cannot be any fundamental differences in our relations with Azerbaijan and Armenia.

- Russia is the main player in the Karabakh settlement. The previous president of Russia, Dmitriy Medvedev undertook personal efforts to facilitate dialogue between the presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia. President Putin has not demonstrated any such desire so far. What role do you think Russia can play in the conflict settlement and what do you think about the idea that Moscow is key to conflict settlement?

- I think it is up to the two countries (Azerbaijan and Armenia) to resolve the conflict. Our country has a strong interest in eliminating this conflict. We are interested because both Azerbaijan and Armenia are Russia's friends.

I do not agree that Russia's politics has changed under the current president. I know one of our Karabakh experts who recently published a book. We have discussed this many times and he agrees with me on this. I asked him: "You have been working on Karabakh-related issues for several years. Do you think Russia -either instinctively or proceeding from its national interests - show any bias towards either side? He said, "no, nothing like that". Nevertheless, for some reason, some people think the reverse is true. This could be because we communicate with Armenians more often, or there could be some other causes.

Therefore, as a professional who has been in the trade for 40 years I am absolutely sure that the future of Russia's policy in this region depends on the equal treatment of these two countries. And I think we will continue to resort to all possible methods to facilitate rapprochement and the resolution of this conflict.