The appointment of the US envoy in Baku has remained the main agenda of the US-Azerbaijani relations for several months.
As is known, the position of the US ambassador in Azerbaijan has remained vacant for a year since the completion of the term of ambassador Anne Derse who left Azerbaijan in July 2009.
Though some experts mostly link the absence of the envoy with purely technical aspects of the procedure of appointment of US diplomats, in reality, such a long delay can be explained by political motives.
As is known, Azerbaijan’s position on two “US” projects of the last year-the Turkish-Armenian rapprochement and Iranian issue clearly differed from the one that was prepared by US strategists for him.
Baku has made it clear on the Iranian issue that its participation in any operations against the southern neighbor is merely impossible. In addition, Azerbaijani officials have repeatedly stressed the friendly relations between Tehran and Baku.
The second US regional project on the opening of the Armenian-Turkish border on which the consensus seems to have been reached between all concerned parties (including Russia, US, Armenia and even Turkey) was, in turn, suspended due to irreconcilability of Baku that clearly stated the impossibility to open borders between Turkey and Armenia without parallel resolution of the Karabakh conflict or at least serious achievements in the peace process (later the United States admitted that these two processes cannot be separated and they must go on par-author).
The Turkish-Armenian rapprochement gripped in Azerbaijan’s vice has been frustrated by Armenia itself.
First the Constitutional Court of this country released the full text of the resolution on protocols fixing the regulations with prerequisites as well as formulations contradicting to the spirit and contest of protocols. Later Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan passed a decision to suspend the ratification of the two protocols signed by Yerevan and Ankara in Zurich in October of the last year thus showing its nonconstructiveness.
Undoubtedly, this foreign policy of Azerbaijan annoyed the United States. In addition, this was accompanied by some single-time complications in energy sphere.
Turkey, which is the main artery of the West for pumping energy sources to Europe, failed to agree with Azerbaijan on gas tariffs. Meanwhile, in line with national interests Azerbaijan continued searches of alternative markets to sell its gas.
The agreement with Russian Gazprom which expressed wish to purchase as much gas as Azerbaijan can supply has become one of the variants.
Throughout the whole period of “confrontation”, Azerbaijan has repeatedly urged the United States to review its priorities in the region and pay attention to Azerbaijan as one of the most important partners in spheres of energy, security and fighting international terrorism.
In the result, there appeared a thaw in the relations between the countries dating to the climatic warming.
Azerbaijan and Turkey agreed on gas issue in spring 2010.
The due agreement between the parties was signed in early June. The contract fixed the price of sale of Azerbaijani gas to Turkey, as well as the cost of its transit to Europe, which means Azerbaijan is among the most real suppliers of gas for Nabucco, lobbied by the United States.
Head of Pentagon Robert Gates paid an official visit to Azerbaijan too.
It does not matter whether the coincidence of the two crucial events was at random. It is more important that Gates has come to Baku with a “button” to restart the relations between the United States and Azerbaijan.
In this case the message of Obama in which the US leader tried to explain the important contribution of Azerbaijani partners in international anti-terror coalition played a role of a button.
In addition, Obama recognized Azerbaijan’s leadership in regional processes and stressed Azerbaijan’s contribution to regional energy security.
The US president voiced confidence that the complex issues between the countries will be settled.
The restart button has been pressed and we had to wait for the results which took not too long to appear.
The next visit of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to the region brought more confidence that the new US administration, reviewing the situation in the region, has taken a right decision to continue the course of restarting relations with Azerbaijan.
The priorities of relations with Azerbaijan, indicated by Clinton, have clearly illustrated the intentions of restart. She listed the resolution of the Karabakh conflict, regional security and raising Azerbaijan’s sovereignty, as well as the development of human capital among the main trends of development of ties between Washington and Baku.
But it should be noted that this all occurred on the background of the absence of the due level of US communications in Baku. The US envoy in Azerbaijan was not appointed yet.
Undoubtedly, the absence of the ambassador is more a problem of the United States than Azerbaijan but it cannot stay unnoticed in the Azerbaijani side since sound relations can hardly be built without due communications.
In addition, the absence of the “main” US diplomat in the country can be regarded either as a proof of the insufficiently serious approach to partner relations or as a result of the resistance of concerned parties to the establishment of ties between our countries.
I think both moments were present in this case.
In turn, it should be noted that Bryza’s candidacy for the post of the US embassy in Azerbaijan nominated by Persident Obama has faced the unprecedented black PR campaign organized by the Armenian diaspora.
The campaign launched by the Armenian National Committee of America was supported by the “lawyers” of Armenians who accused Bryza of almost all sins. He was accused of being incompetent as a diplomat, failures of the US policy in the region and even the war between Russia and Georgia. In other words, this was a whole set of accusations.
The Armenian diaspora and lobby have chosen the Senate as the main target of their influence. They have sufficient methods of influencing this body.
These are the so-called representatives of the interests of their (pro-Armenian) sponsors-congressmen and senators like Frank Pallone and the permissibility of lobbying interests with the use of the financial tool…
Anyway, the Senate hampered Bryza’s appointment by results of discussions in the Committee of International Affairs of the US Senate putting it off for at least a few months.
This “attack” against Bryza showed the way a state (in this case Armenia, in the face of its US supporters) can influence the relations of the United States with their crucial regional partner whose importance was stressed by both the president and the Secretary of State.
The State Department and the White House admitted the need to build relations of the new level with Azerbaijan and thereby indicated the sphere of national interests of US in the South Caucasus…
Nonetheless, the US national interests turned out to be on the back burner due to the shortcomings in the US political system based on the so-called checks and balances principles.
As is known, curbing of a branch of power with two others is the main postulate of this system but the architects of the US political system hardly created these balances to curb implementation of national interests in different parts of the world.
Anyway, the Azerbaijani light blinking on the US radar of the South Caucasus started to dim again under the influence of different concerned groupings tending to hamper the restarting process of the US-Azerbaijani relations by all means.
It is a matter of time whether Obama’s administration will be able to resist this impact and bring the relations with Azerbaijan to a new level not only on words but also in action.
But one thing is clear by 100%-the real cooperation with Azerbaijan complies with the real national interests of the United States and it is not limited to the role of Azerbaijan in the anti-terror campaign in Afghanistan (which is undoubtedly invaluable). Meanwhile, the development of US relations with the South Caucasus is impossible without Azerbaijan.
Azerbaijan is an unquestionable leader of the region, its gate to the energy rich Caspian Sea located between Russia and Iran and connecting the West and the East and Islamic world with the European citilization.
Azerbaijan is likely the most stable US partner both in economic and political issues which has repeatedly been proven within many years of cooperation.
Time will show whether the executive branches of US power will have a strength to remove curbing on the part of the groupings influencing the Senate…
Or will this curbing remain without due resistance?
Rahman Hajiyev
Editor-in-chief of 1news.az
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