'Azerbaijan may rethink its pro- Western stance'

Azerbaijan may rethink its pro- Western stance and realign with "a new bloc" if it doesn't get more support, particularly in its conflict with neighboring Armenia, Head of the Foreign Relations Department of the Azerbaijani Presidential Administration Novruz Mammadov said, Bloomberg Bussinesweek reported.

"The Caspian Sea nation wants Europe and the U.S. to pressure Armenia into pulling out of Azeri districts adjacent to the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region," Mammadov said.
"Azerbaijan has also been invited to join another political alliance," he added.

"We aren't paying attention to those proposals for now," he said. "But if it continues like this, we may consider it in five to 10 years. We're expecting help from the West on the Karabakh issue."

"Azerbaijan is the only secular Muslim nation in the world that's tied its destiny with the West," Mammadov said.

He estimates that about 35 percent of all NATO supplies to Afghanistan transit his country.
"But we haven't seen a positive attitude in return," he said.

"While Azerbaijan is also a member of the Commonwealth of Independent States, which unites some former Soviet nations, its closeness to the West has caused "some tension" in relations with Iran," Mammadov said.

"Iran's telling us: Why are you selling your oil to the West? You should sever your relations with the U.S. and Israel because they're our enemies," Mammadov said.

Mammadov accused some Western media of seeking to stoke tensions between Azerbaijan and Iran after Foreign Policy magazine reported last month that his nation had offered some of its airports to Israel for possible air strikes against Iran, citing unnamed U.S. intelligence agents.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. Armenian armed forces have occupied 20 per cent of Azerbaijan since 1992, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a ceasefire agreement in 1994. The co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group - Russia, France, and the U.S. - are currently holding the peace negotiations.

Armenia has not yet implemented the U.N. Security Council's four resolutions on the liberation of the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding regions.


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