Carl Bildt: Azerbaijan has authoritarian political development that would create problems

Carl Bildt, Swedish Foreign Minister and one of the architects of the Eastern Partnership agreements, expressed uneasiness on Azerbaijan’s sincere partnership with the program, due to its authoritarian behavior.

“Azerbaijan is … in a different league.  They are sitting on oil and have a somewhat more authoritarian political development that would create problems for us,” he said during his trip to Washington DC last week, TURAN’s US correspondent reports.

Speaking at the Atlantic Council Bildt laid down the challenges in front of Eastern Partnership, saying that it faces “more different situation than it was in 2008.”

While three countries – Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine, were able to move “faster forward” through the partnership, Armenia decided to go with the Customs Union as “they didn't have much of a choice; they were called to Moscow and presented certain facts that were persuasive.”

Belarus, he said, is in a most uncomfortable situation, in the sense that it has significant economic problems on its own: “They are extremely dependent upon the billions coming to support them from Moscow, but they profoundly dislike the Moscow policies because they see them as threatening to the possibilities of Belarus itself, which is, by the way, entirely true.”

Meantime, he added, Russia continues to be a particular threat to Western values and security.

On Ukraine, he made it clear that if Russia wants to invade its next-door neighbor “they can do it...but it will be the end of Russia as we know it.” -25В-