U.S.-Azerbaijan Relations

Assistant Secretary Fried: I'm happy to. This was the third round, as you know. Barry Lowenkron started it last December in Baku and the second round was held here in March. This was the third round, a videoconference. This discussion, this dialogue, is part of our core agenda with Azerbaijan. We have economic interests in common with Azerbaijan, we have security interests in common, and we also have issues of democratic freedom and all of these issues are important to us.

Barry Lowenkron and I represented the American side and Elmar Mammadyarov represented the Azerbaijani side. We had this discussion last Friday and it's a vehicle for us to do two things, really. Raise our concerns where we have them, and also work cooperatively with the Azerbaijan Government to address them. Either address our concerns or help work together to promote the institutions as well as the practices of free societies.

Question: What are your main concerns, if you can just elaborate on that?

Assistant Secretary Fried: Step back a little bit. Azerbaijan is emerging in two senses. It's emerging from the wreckage of the Soviet Union and it is also emerging in its own right as a nation, and it takes both political will and time to build functioning democratic institutions.

So we want to be very clear about problems that exist, and there are problems in the media in particular, but we also want to work with Azerbaijan to build institutions, to help Azerbaijan build the institutions of free media and the practice of free media. We're going to tackle these issues one at a time.

Question: Ambassador, many critics of U.S. policy in Azerbaijan point to the fact that the U.S. has strategic relations with Azerbaijan when it comes to security and energy. But they say that U.S. is not tough enough on the democratic development issues in Azerbaijan. What is your response to this criticism?

Assistant Secretary Fried: I'm aware of the charge, but it just isn't true. If we didn't care about democracy issues we wouldn't be having this dialogue. The Azerbaijani authorities know very well that this is important to us and that progress in this area will mean that our relations are deeper and stronger. Lack of progress means that the problems will be a constant drag on our relations.

Obviously some of the NGOs and the human rights organizations in Baku are principally concerned with the problems of democracy in that country and the shortcomings, and I don't blame them. We keep in good contact with them and we share some of their concerns. But we've got to find the right way to pursue all of our interests at once and not allow our interests in security or economics to drown out our interests in greater freedom, and at the same time not allow our interest and commitment to freedom to paralyze us from cooperation in other areas. Saying that is one thing, doing it is another and we will do our best.

Question: Can we expect there will be any immediate result of this ongoing dialogue? For example, do you think the government will release the seven imprisoned Azerbaijani journalists? The State Department, U.S. Government, and other international organizations have raised this issue many times.

Assistant Secretary Fried: They certainly should find a way to resolve this problem. I can't promise you what the actions will be because the Azerbaijan Government will make its determination and the processes there will work and hopefully there will be good results, but I can't guarantee this.

What I can say though is that we will continue to raise these issues even when it is difficult for the Azerbaijani Government to hear it.

But I also don't want to leave the impression that our discussions were confrontational. They were not. Foreign Minister Mammadyarov knows Americans very well. He knows our concerns, he knows how serious we are in expressing them. And I think he approached this in good faith, he listened carefully. We also had a discussion of areas where we can work together.

Question: There will be presidential elections next year in October. According to international observers Azerbaijan has a bad election record. Do you have any reason to believe that these elections will be free and fair, looking at the previous record?

Assistant Secretary Fried: Well, we hope that they will be free and fair, but they certainly must be an improvement over the last ones.

The last elections, by the way, were an improvement over the previous ones also. You will recall that there were some genuine improvements, significant ones, but it was still not an election that we judged to be free and fair.

We hope to see a positive trend. It isn't so much the conduct of the elections on election day. When we look at an election process we look at the whole process: whether the media climate is free, whether the campaign has been conducted in a way that does not reflect the heavy hand of the state in tilting the competition.

So we have quite a ways to go, but I'm hopeful that we will see continued progress.

Question: You're in constant contact with Azeri authorities. Do you have a sense that the Azeri Government is really committed to democratic development, to reforms, to moving toward a democratic future?

Assistant Secretary Fried: I think that the government has a vision of a modernized, well-run country. And I think that they are more inclined to work with us on projects of building institutions. I think some of the problems that exist with respect to individual cases reflect the lack of such institutions.

Azerbaijan still needs to continue to build a strong, independent judiciary. It needs to strengthen the rule of law. It needs to strengthen sanctity of contracts, it needs to build independent institutions of government which will be credible regulators of the economy. So it has a lot to do.

I think that the Azerbaijani Government is more inclined to build new institutions and I think the problems arise when individual cases come up and are not handled well by the institutions that now exist.

Now that's a general view. That's my observation. I wouldn't argue that it's accurate in all respects, but it's my effort to give a general picture of what we see.

Question: I would like to talk about Nagorno Karabakh.

Now both Azerbaijan and Armenia are entering the election cycle. Are you less optimistic about the chances for success in the peace process, and do you think the current Presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia missed the opportunity?

Assistant Secretary Fried: I don't want to be critical. I think we were all disappointed that the last trip of the Contact Group didn't yield the results we had hoped.

There have been good talks, some progress has been made, and at some point I hope the leaders of the two countries will find a way forward. Ultimately it's in everyone's interest.

The future of Azerbaijan will be under a cloud as long as this issue is not resolved. It can only be resolved peacefully. A war would destroy Azerbaijan's future and do no one any good. A peaceful settlement is the way to go.

Question: Are you concerned about the latest developments in Georgia? What is the U.S. position on the issue?

Assistant Secretary Fried: We are very concerned. In fact we condemned this attack. We have been in close touch with the Georgian Government which has shown us the evidence it has. The evidence seems to show that there was an overflight, an incursion. We at the same time urged both Georgia and Russia to continue to work together cooperatively to resolve issues related to South Ossetia and Abkhazia. We think it would be a terrible mistake if this latest incident, as bad as it is, derailed some of the progress that's been made and we hope both sides continue to work together.

I should also add that we've been in touch with the Russian Government, both in Washington and in Moscow, and we're aware that the Russian Government has denied any involvement in these attacks. We also have been assured that the Russian Government wants to work with Georgia in a constructive spirit. The way forward is for Russia and Georgia to cooperate both on South Ossetia and Abkhazia, but also to cooperate in the Georgian investigation of this incident.

We're going to follow it closely. We're going to evaluate the information.

I must say there is absolutely no evidence that I've seen that this is somehow a Georgian provocation. It doesn't appear to be the case at all. It was certainly a problem, but not one of Georgia's making.

We want both sides to work together. And the indications are that both the Georgia and Russian Governments are going to continue to work together and if that is the case, we welcome it.

Question: Last question. What is the status of the discussion of the radar site at Gabala? Is this off the table or are you still consulting with the Russians?

Assistant Secretary Fried: We're consulting with the Russians about this. We thought President Putin made a very interesting offer. Of course, we immediately made sure that the Azerbaijani Government was comfortable with it. We're not going to do something with Russia that involves anything on Azerbaijani territory without consulting with the Government of Azerbaijan. It affects the sovereign territory of that country.

It's on the table. We want to work with Russia. We see the Russian offer as interesting and promising. It's not a substitute for what we want to do with the Poles and Czechs, but we see rather that all of these ideas -- the American ideas with the Poles and the Czechs, the Russian ideas with Gabala and their own radar installation in southern Russia, European projects for short and mid-range missile defense -- the best case would be for all of these proposals to be brought together in a large compatible system that provided everybody with the best possible protection.

Question: Ambassador, thank you so much.

Assistant Secretary Fried: It's my pleasure.