Matthew Bryza: President Aliyev is Popular Beyond of Anyone Else

WASHINGTON, DC. May 4, 2012: Is Matthew Bryza too optimistic about Azerbaijan? On May 2, just three days after the US Senate received White House notification that President Obama has withdrawn the nomination of Matthew Bryza for the US Ambassador to Azerbaijan position, the Illinois diplomat, who moved to Turkey right after returning from Baku, showed-up in Washington DC- based Jamestown Foundation and criticized the Administration’s current South Caucasus policy, TURAN’s Washington, DC correspondent Alakbar Raufoglu reports.

“I know that everybody here in the US Government thinks that we’re focusing on the South Caucasus issues and all of our priorities, but the countries in the region don’t feel that. They feel very much drift”, Bryza said in front of Washington’s think-tank and diplomatic community.

Especially, he slammed the Administration’s latest efforts on ignoring Azerbaijan, while implementing the rapprochement policy between Turkey and Armenia.

“This (Turkey-Armenia) normalization would be great if it’s achievable. But it’s not achievable and plus it negatively influences Nagorno-Karabakh peace process”, he mentioned adding, “No matter how much we wanted Armenia-Turkey rapprochement, instead we’ve got nothing”.

On Nagorno-Karabakh, Bryza emphasized that no peace agreement is expected until the US government takes this process at “very senior level”.

The Azeri government “will not launch military operations until it fully loses its confidence to the peace process”.

In the meanwhile, he emphasized that the risks of the military conflict are increases.

For years, he added, “we’ve talked about three senses of strategic interests in South Caucasus: Security, energy and the internal reforms. They all are important to be followed if the US doesn’t want to lose this region”.

At the same time, while speaking about democracy in Azerbaijan, Mr. Bryza mentioned that “the situation is not as bad as many things. “But it’s certainly not so bad so to write it off”.

“There is no chance for any Arab uprisings in Azerbaijan now. President Aliyev is popular beyond of anyone else”, he stressed.

According to Bryza, there are lots of senior people and young people in Azerbaijan who are ready to make the system better, There are efforts on the way”.

The current president, he adds, “intends to develop the country by using the oil incomes”. Therefore, unlike the Arab spring countries, youth in Azerbaijan “thinks that if they go to the streets, they will lose everything, especially the current opportunity that the country achieves”.

Bryza’s statement on democracy came while answering the question of Daniel Fried, his former boss at the State Department, who is currently leading the Obama Administration’s Guantanamo Bay policy at the State Department. In his question, Mr. Fried mentioned the oligarchs in Azerbaijan, asking whether the US Administration addresses the democratic reforms in Azerbaijan.

Mr. Bryza also talked about the regional threats, mentioning the Iranian government “up to terrible things towards Azerbaijan”. He said, the Azeri government is “totally against the Iranian war, it will bring a huge humanitarian and social "destroy to Azerbaijan”.

“There is a huge gap in the US Administration now regarding what is happening between Iran and South Caucasus”, he added.

After the Jamestown event, TURAN’s Washington DC correspondent interviewed Ambassador Bryza regarding his speech.

Question: I assume after your today’s speech, many democrats in Baku will question whether Ambassador Bryza is trying to advocate for Azeri government’s policy in Washington DC, or as a former senior diplomat, is trying to pressure the Democrat Administration not to let relationship with Azerbaijan to get out of track? Which of these is true?

Answer: None of them. I’m an independent person. I exist on my own right now, Im a private business person, and Im an independent academic heading a think-tank in Tallinn, Estonia, The International center for Defense Studies, so these sorts of events are new for me, and it’s amazing that I can just say what I think (laugh).

So I’m saying what I think. I was very proud to develop a US policy towards Azerbaijan that reflected our government’s views, but my views too, I believe in them, so if my views sound similar to the US policy; this is because I believe in them.

Question: You called on the US administration to take the Karabakh negotiations on a very senior level. Does that mean that we should expect meetings on the presidents level hosted by the White House, just same as the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations?

Answer: No, not at all. I don’t think that’s realistic. I don’t think we are ever going to get that sort of level top participation, like President Clinton offered in the case of Middle East peace process. I think, number one, it’s not healthy if the Minsk group Co-Chairs has the president involved at that level, it just creates an imbalance. And, number two, I think we are stuck in the process now unless the two presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia feel trust toward each other. And I don’t believe trust will evolve organically, I think that has to be generated somehow. And I think that’s a natural role for the United States, and if the US doesn’t do that, Russia won’t do that, France won’t do that, and so who else is going to do that within the Minsk group co-chair countries? Nobody. So I think it’s up to us to do that.

Question: Truly, why President Medvedev, or years ago then-President Shirak can do it and president Obama can’t? Is that what you expect from him?

Answer: I don’t believe President Obama will get involved, I don’t anticipate that. But Secretary Clinton is ready to be involved more, and in our bilateral diplomacy with Russia the issue of facilitating and not manipulating Nagorno-Karabakh peace process should be an agenda item. In other words, the profile of Nagorno-Karabakh settlement process needs to be elevated on our diplomatic agenda, on the level of the Secretary of State, and sometimes, the President.

Question: I want to take you back to the Congressional hearings on your Ambassador nomination two years ago, when some here in Washington, DC were concerned if Ambassador Bryza, being a close friend to the Azeri government, will be ignored in Baku when it comes to addressing issues like democracy, human rights and other problems in the country. Do you think the Azeri government was listening to you?

Answer: I do think they did because of the initiatives that we launched. My approach is not to lecture to them; my approach is to try to look at the situation the way it is, to identify what the real obstacles are, which to me the oligarchy concentration of power is, and then figure out the realistic ways to change that situation.

It’s impossible to do by flipping a switch or releasing a statement, it’s only possible by working day after day with people with authority to win their trust. And to convince them that our goal is not to overthrow the government of Azerbaijan, and to convince them that we didn’t launch the uprisings in the broader Middle East and we don’t want them in Azerbaijan. And also to convince them that they need, they must move forward on these reforms, or else in the long run they can’t succeed.

And so with that least to them is the opportunity to define success jointly with the government of Azerbaijan through realistic, achievable steps, and there are many ways for doing that. I started up a dialog forum between society leaders or presidential administration, or was about to start it and I had to go. We were working in other spheres, attempting legal reforms; advancing electronic government to fight corruption, new code for fighting corruption as well, competition code to make sure economy is more open. There are many specific ways to do it, and they are listening!

Question: It will be unfair if I don’t ask you about Ambassador Richard Morningstar, what do you think of President Obama’s nomination?

Answer: He is fantastic; he is unbelievably the best possible choice. He knows the country, he knows the region, he is a strategic thinker, and he cares very much about Azerbaijan.

Question: And what are the main challenges in front of him?

Answer: You know what they are. They are the same ones I’ve been working on, the whole reform agenda we were just talking about, helping the government of Azerbaijan work with its allies and friends in Turkey and Europe to finalize the gas transit through Turkey, and help the parties figure out what the next export directions are going to be. Also to support the Minsk Group and advance our work in fighting proliferation, security in the Caspian Sea, sustain the transportation from Afghanistan as well.

Question: Some argue that Morningstar is energy oriented…

Answer: Well, I was told to be energy oriented as well (Contact.az).