Washington briefing: Azerbaijani official assails U.S. policies in “friendly talk”

by Emil Sanamyan

Published: Friday September 25, 2009

Azerbaijan's Deputy Foreign Minister Araz Azimov at the State Department, July 7, 2007. Armenian Reporter

Washington - A senior Azerbaijani official dismissed U.S. criticism of his government's treatment of political opponents, restrictions on mass media and nongovernmental groups, and corruption, pointing to what he argued were similar restrictions or greater problems in the United States. He also demanded that Washington do more to stimulate Azerbaijan's motivation to cooperate with the United States.

In what he described as a "friendly talk," Deputy Foreign Minister Araz Azimov recalled the scandal at the former Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and the mistreatment of terrorism suspects at the U.S. military detention facility at Guantanamo, and suggested that the United States had not fully investigated human-rights violations there. He further described U.S. military presence in Afghanistan as a "mess" and likened it to the ill-fated Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979-89.

Mr. Azimov also justified the recent ban on U.S.- and British-funded broadcasts in Azerbaijan, claiming that the United States "would not allow" such broadcasters to use its national frequencies. (In fact, a number of foreign-funded media are available on national frequencies in the United States.)

The Azerbaijani official went on to propose that he "could not measure corruption" and therefore could not judge whether there was more corruption in the United States or Azerbaijan.

Discussing the history of U.S.-Azerbaijan engagement, Mr. Azimov described the United States as "more clumsy than it could be." He noted that not a single U.S. secretary of state had visited Azerbaijan since the "one-hour visit" by Jim Baker in 1992.

"The time which was necessary for the [Obama administration] to get prepared has elapsed," he stressed. "We expect high[-level] visits, . . . we expect statements made publicly on U.S. strategy for the Caucasus," as well as U.S.-Russia cooperation in the settlement of the Karabakh conflict.

Speaking on September 18 at a Georgetown University conference sponsored by the Azerbaijani Embassy, Mr. Azimov also took time to list what Azerbaijan believes are its contributions to the world civilization and the West.           

Mr. Azimov was in Washington for the annual security-dialogue meetings with U.S. officials. A deputy foreign minister managing Azerbaijan's relations with the West, Mr. Azimov has worked in the same capacity under four different ministers since 1994.