TIME TO CHANGE PRIORITIES

A high-level meeting of the International Nizami Gancavi Centre (ICN) and the Madrid Club was held in Baku last week. Eminent guests, including former heads of state and government of a number of countries, heads of influential international organizations such as the Bibliotecha Alexandrina, the Rome Club, the World Academy of Science and Culture, the Council on Foreign Relations, the International Centre for Cooperation and Dialogue, the Peace and Culture Foundation and the Organization of Global Ethics graced the forum with their presence.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev sent a message of greetings to the participants in the forum. After reading out the head of state's message, the chairman of the State Committee for Work with the Diaspora Nazim Ibrahimov also reported that the purpose of the meeting was to prepare for the 2014 Open Society Forum, to prepare a plan of work and strategy for next year and to assist in the dissemination of knowledge about Azerbaijan in the world. He said that the choice of Baku as the venue for the meeting was linked with Azerbaijan's stability and prosperity against a background of upheaval in the rest of the Muslim world.

Then the former Latvian President and co-chair of the ICN, Vaira Vike-Freiberga, said that the basic aim of the meeting was to prepare recommendations for conferences on the stable development of the UN. According to her, the joint societies project is aimed at resolving the problems of societies in which discrimination on ethnic, racial and sexual grounds was widespread. The director of Bibliotecha Alexandrina and member of the Madrid Club Ismail Serageldin highly praised the choice of Baku as the venue for such international forums and expressed the hope that the meeting would contribute to the implementation of the joint societies project.

The former Finnish Prime Minister Tarja Halonen stressed the significance of the joint societies project in drawing up a development programme for the period after 2015 and the interest of the ICN and the Madrid Club in this work. And the former Dutch Prime Minister, President of the Madrid Club Wim Kok said that questions of the agenda for the meeting were important in defining the directions of future work.

One of the main subjects of the forum was a discussion of the prospects for the active participation of the world community in resolving Azerbaijan's main problem - the Nagornyy Karabakh conflict - in the context of similar problems in other regions of the world, in which greater interest has been shown up to now. Furthermore, the participants in the event focused particular attention on questions linked with the protection of open societies, religious tolerance and the rights of ethnic minorities and women, which have long since been resolved in Azerbaijan.

It is worth noting that this is not the first time that the honourable guests of the forum have gathered in the Azerbaijani capital. The country's increasing importance in the world and its pragmatic and deliberate policy in a very stormy region, thanks to which Azerbaijan has been described as an "island of stability in an unstable world", is more and more often becoming the focus of close attention by politicians past and present in the highest echelons of power. It is significant that people no longer speak about Azerbaijan merely as a country rich in energy resources. Many countries are striving to learn more about the realities of Azerbaijan in order to borrow what to the ordinary Azerbaijani seems natural - the ability to organize inter-state relations on an equal basis and the principles of mutual respect, and not according to the "vassal - overlord" principle, as usually happens with small states, and to provide a stable economic development at a time when the countries around are embroiled in a crisis. And the most important thing, of course, is that foreign countries are lured to Azerbaijan by the traditions of tolerance which for centuries have enabled a multi-ethnic state to ensure peaceful coexistence between different religions and ethnic groups against a background of all the unrest that occurs in other countries and regions.

Informing the broad international public about the realities of Azerbaijan has long been one of the most important priorities of the foreign policy of a state which wants to be known not only for its energy resources. And steps such as holding these forums are some of the more active measures in this direction. In the very same week, literally a day or two before the high-level meeting featuring the former presidents,                       leading experts from foreign countries, including the heads of leading American "think tanks" Stratfor, George Friedman, and the Jamestown Foundation, Glen Howard, and director of the Centre for Post-Soviet Studies of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations Stanislav Chernyavskiy, came to Baku. These and many other participants in the second forum of the Association of Academics on International Relations "South Caucasus in a Changing World" openly stated in their speeches that the strong in this world are not paying due attention to Azerbaijan, choosing other, often false priorities. Let us cite a number of quotes in support of this idea.

"The USA realizes the whole seriousness of the need to ensure the security of the South Caucasus region but still they are not paying sufficient attention to this question," G. Howard stressed.

"Azerbaijan is of world importance not because the republic borders with Russia, Iran and Turkey. Official Baku is also a partner of the US, and Azerbaijan's future is linked with the world, and not just the region. At the same time, Azerbaijan's security is today threatened by great risks which the country is today forced to deal with on its own," G. Friedman said.

"From my point of view Russia is still not making sufficient use of the successes of Azerbaijan's diplomacy, including those problems which exist in the Caucasus," S. Chernyavskiy noted. 

The lure of the world's attention towards Azerbaijan merely in the context of its energy resources or in the aspect of regional problems (Iran, the Near East, and so on) is a basically flawed approach, and this is being voiced more and more often. A professor of political science and a leading expert of Kansas State University in the USA on Russia and Eastern Europe, Dale Herspring, does not conceal his anger at such a lack of attention towards Azerbaijan. "I believe that if I raised the question of insufficient activity by American politics in this region in Washington people would say I was mad. Look what's happening in the Mediterranean, they would say…" the expert told the author.

Those who shape the geopolitical strategies of the development of the Caspian region often really and undeservingly ignore the potential of Azerbaijan. This is stated frankly by the acclaimed American expert and advisor of the Wilson Centre, Alexandros Petersen. Last week the New York Times published a letter by Petersen to its editorial office in which he expressed disagreement with the authors of a recent critical article in the same paper about the three countries of the South Caucasus. According to Petersen, the authors of the article (who include former US ambassador to Baku R. Kozlarich) had ignored the geopolitical importance of Azerbaijan and Georgia which are today independently protecting their independence. "The time has now come to discuss strategic partnership relations with these key countries, especially bearing in mind the tension in their relationships with their bigger neighbours to the north and south," the expert believes.

So, it seems that a realization of the underestimation of Azerbaijan and its potential is happening in the world. As before, Azerbaijan is open to the world, offering it something bigger than mere material values - natural resources, investments, etc. Azerbaijan's importance has already grown beyond the borders of the region. Today the country, which is a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, a key factor of regional stability and development, the initiator of a world movement in support of inter-cultural and inter-civilization dialogues, is making itself felt as an important player in the international arena which is playing a solid role in questions on a global scale. The time has come for the world community to fully appreciate this proposal of cooperation and extend the hand of welcome.