Baku discussed the Russian threat

Public debate on the topic: "Russian threat and Azerbaijan" with the participation of independent experts  and opposition figures was  held on Monday at the headquarters of "Musavat" party.

Previously, this topic was discussed behind closed doors by a group of experts and politicians who decided  to discuss broadly  the issue on external threats in the light of Russian aggression against Ukraine.

"On this day in 1920  the Red Army occupied Azerbaijan, putting an end to democratic development, today the threat is again on the agenda,"  said Isa Gambar, the head of the Musavat Party. The crisis in Ukraine and the dramatic events there is the result of reformatting world order, and  this process will not complete soon, said political analyst Eldar Namazov, noting that Azerbaijan is in a dangerous situation,  and the struggle for stability and territorial integrity, require consolidation of society , both within the country and at the international level.

According to the Director of  Turan information agency, Mehman Aliyev,  the development of Ukrainian crisis  has been dictated by the rapid development of the economic crisis in Russia. President Putin is forced to neutralize internal discontent by  external national-patriotic outbursts.

"The danger is that if Russia's economy continues to fall , Putin will have to go to the aggression against its neighbors, including Azerbaijan, for the sake of internal mobilization."

Almost all experts were unanimous in the view that the Russian threat to Azerbaijan is real, and it is dictated the failure in foreign policy, internal contradictions in society, and lack of democratic institutions and national consensus.

Political analyst Zafar Guliyev noted the growing leftist sentiment in social networks on the background of public discontent.

Chairman of the People's Party Panah Huseyn , believes that Russia is implementing in Ukraine a plan  of creation a Eurasian Union, and it is unlikely that Moscow will stop under Western pressure. According to him, there is a real threat of aggression against Azerbaijan, and turning the country into an unstable periphery.

Different point of view is shared by the deputy chairman of "Musavat" Arif Hajili , who believes that cooling the relations between the West and Russia will create real prerequisites for accelerating the process of democratization in post-Soviet countries.

After the two-hour debate, Isa Gambar said that only the resistance at the national level can prevent aggression. After the occupation of the Crimea consolidation of Ukrainian society and more decisive  actions of the government suspended further deployment of the Russian troops. Under such situation,  weakness of Azerbaijan is expressed in internal repression, corruption, braking European integration.

The debate participants adopted an appeal to the people of Azerbaijan , calling for consolidation of the entire society and the refusal of the authorities of repression against civil society activists . The participants also supported the initiative of the  Tatar societies in Russia and Ukraine for the nomination for the Nobel Prize  the leader of the Crimean Tatars, Mustafa Camilev.

Musavat party proposed  to hold a rally on May 4  demanding the release  of political prisoners.—0—