West Makes Big Mistake by Supporting Aliyev - George Soros

The American billionaire and philanthropist George Soros criticized Western countries for their cooperation with the Azerbaijani government. Speaking last week at a conference in London, he said: "One of the countries, to which the West is unfortunately too complacent, is Azerbaijan, where there is a rather unpleasant dictatorship. I several times argued directly with the President of this country. He often pretends to be above the fight and not responsible for repression in Azerbaijan.

However, in conversations with me he demonstrated such a profound knowledge of what conditions are in prison for political prisoners, the charges against them, and so on... So it's just a pretense. He is responsible for many things and uses repression. He is trying to appease the West, demonstrating new potential oil fields. And I think that the West makes a big mistake by supporting him," concluded Soros.

Speaking of the other post-Soviet countries, Soros touched Kyrgyzstan, which has "quite a high degree of democratic development, precisely because it is one of the poorest countries."

According to him, oddly enough, Kazakhstan has managed to separate from Russia more than others. "Nazarbayev has always been a bit more enlightened than others. Despite the fact that he was already a very long time in power and made a lot of mistakes, an educated middle class appeared there, including people educated abroad. And even the state university has higher standards than in other universities in the region. There are many teachers from abroad," he said.

According to Soros, other countries are much more dependent on Russia, and in addition, they are much weaker. "As an example, we can look at Tajikistan," he stressed. -02D-