SANCTIONS WITHOUT DISCRIMINATION

The events in Ukraine have become the most vivid evidence of the crisis in international relations and law, which manifests itself in the different attitude of the leading powers of the world to the same issues of sovereignty and territorial integrity. Western countries, which displayed a strong consensus on the issue of sanctions against Russia for annexing the Crimea and for supporting the separatists in Donbass, still continue to ignore the occupation of a fifth of Azerbaijan more than two decades ago and refuse to apply the same sanctions against the occupier, Armenia. And if the system of deterrents and counterbalances that characterizes the foreign policy of Azerbaijan over the last 20 years allows the country to cope with such an unfair attitude, the notorious policy of double standards hits, first of all, the positions of the West in the region.

Last week in Washington, DC, the board of the influential American newspaper The Washington Times organized a conference on Azerbaijan-US relations, where representatives of Azerbaijan directly warned their American counterparts about the consequences of their inconsistent policy in the post-Soviet area. Western powers take a policy of double standards as a basis, applying sanctions against Russia for annexing the Crimea, but refusing the same measures against Armenia for the occupation of Nagornyy Karabakh, the head of the Milli Maclis committee on international relations and interparliamentary ties, Samad Seyidov, said at the event.

"From a strategic point of view today, America, unfortunately, has far fewer friends in the region than before. That is why we would like to see more attention to the region and more strategic vision," the Azerbaijani MP said.

According to him, the restoration of international law will lead to the stabilization of the situation in the world. "We need to apply equal requirements for those who violated international law, without making distinctions, whether it is Russia or Armenia," Seyidov said.

In turn, the Azerbaijani ambassador to the US, Elin Suleymanov, said that without a common strategy, Washington is wasting efforts to address minor issues in the region. "If you do not have immunity, you are affected by measles or something else. This strategic perspective is the immune system. If it does not exist, there are all these little things," the diplomat said.

In fact, Azerbaijan urged the administration of US President Barack Obama to formulate a clear long-term geopolitical strategy for Eurasia and warned of a possible loss of Washington's influence in the region, The Washington Times concluded later. 

The deputy head of the Presidential Administration of Azerbaijan, Novruz Mammadov, spoke even more openly about Baku's view of the illogical policy of the West, and especially the United States, in the former Soviet Union. In an interview with the Russian publication Lenta.ru, the representative of the administration also chided the Western countries for double standards with respect to similar problems in the post-Soviet area. But the main focus of Western strategists was probably attracted by two other theses with which Mammadov made it clear that the attitude to the Karabakh problem is the basic principle on which Baku is building its foreign relations: "The US is funding the separatist regime of Nagornyy Karabakh, but equates separatists in Ukraine to terrorists" and "for us Russia is a strategic partner".

According to Mammadov, Azerbaijan is building international relations on an equal and mutually beneficial basis, and Western countries, including the United States, are no exception. In Azerbaijan's position there is no duality, and the country is a supporter of consistent dialogue, mutually beneficial cooperation and non-interference in the internal affairs of each other.

By the way, against this background a clear lack of understanding was caused by the allegations of the Ukrainian ambassador in Baku, Aleksandr Mishchenko, that Azerbaijan opposed sanctions against the Russian delegation during a recent vote in PACE. The diplomat's reproach about the inconsistency of Baku's policies regarding the Ukrainian crisis does not hold water. Suffering from separatism, Azerbaijan has essentially defended the territorial integrity of all countries, and in the case of Ukraine, before and especially after it was violated. How Azerbaijan voted in PACE has no relation to this fundamental support, but directly concerns the same policy of double standards of the West in relation to the same problem of separatism. The logic is very simple, just like international law. If Russia is recognized as an aggressor that has violated the territorial integrity of Ukraine, for which it is subjected to all kinds of sanctions from everywhere, why isn't Armenia subject to the same sanctions for violating the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan? Especially as in the second case, the fact of the Armenian aggression has been confirmed by numerous decisions of international organizations, especially UN Security Council resolutions.

After the rebuke to the Azerbaijani delegation, the chairman of the Azerbaijani parliament, Oqtay Asadov, noted that with its vote against depriving Russia of voting rights in PACE, Baku acted not against the territorial integrity of Ukraine, but for dialogue.

He stressed that Baku supports, and will support, the territorial integrity of Ukraine in all cases: "But we do not join the sanctions, we are against them. They say that Azerbaijan supports and justifies the occupier and the like. No. This is absolutely not the case. We are for dialogue instead of sanctions, just like in the issue of Nagornyy Karabakh Europe offers only dialogue instead of sanctions against Armenia. We offer them to use their own options in all cases. This is not to say that we have taken a negative stance towards Ukraine. We support the territorial integrity of Ukraine in all senses."

Therefore, the Ukrainian ambassador and someone else may try to blame Baku as much as they want for not doing what others wanted us to do. In fact, Azerbaijan once again showed that in its actions, it will always act on purely national interests and build its relations with international partners, depending on their attitude to the main problem of the republic - the violation of its territorial integrity.

But let's go back to Azerbaijani-American relations. The American expert on the post-Soviet area, Wayne Merry, said recently: "The strategic importance of Azerbaijan to the United States is decreasing, and Baku has shown little interest in strengthening relations with Washington." We can only agree in part with the views of the prominent American analyst. The fact that the strategic importance of Azerbaijan for the Obama administration has somewhat decreased is obvious, but this is not the fault of Baku. One of the activists of the Azerbaijani diaspora, Adil Bagirov, who is well versed in the US political system, sees both objective reasons (withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, a slight improvement of relations with Iran) and subjective reasons behind this - neither Obama nor Biden nor Kerry have ever been close to Azerbaijan or to the Turkic world in general. "This is likely to change in early 2017, when the White House gets a new host, for whom the strategic importance of Azerbaijan will be higher and the emotional significance of Armenia will be lower," Bagirov believes.

In any case, Azerbaijan warned the US about the possible loss of influence in Eurasia if that country continues its selective attitude to similar problems in the region.

Russia is already beginning to take advantage of the current situation, increasing its cooperation with Azerbaijan, and we cannot rule out that being under the yoke of Western sanctions, Moscow will make positive adjustments for Baku in its policy in the South Caucasus. So conclusions from the current situation should be made not by Baku, as suggested by Merry above, but by the United States itself, which is certainly not interested in having to sacrifice its interests in cooperation with Azerbaijan, a strategic point on which the key US projects in Eurasia converge.