BAKU’S WARMING TIES TO ISRAEL ANGER IRAN
Tehran’s attempt to scupper Israeli president’s visit gets nowhere, as Baku decides ties to Israel take priority over Islamic solidarity.
By Kenan Guluzade in Baku
The first visit by a president of Israel to independent Azerbaijan has caused a diplomatic rupture between Baku and Tehran, as well as highlighting warming ties between the Central Asian republic and the Jewish state.
President Shimon Peres made his official visit to Azerbaijan on June 28-29. The countries signed two agreements, on cooperation in the fields of science, education and culture and on information and communication technologies.
Israel has maintained an embassy in Baku since the early Nineties, shortly after Azerbaijan declared independence from the Soviet Union.
Baku has not yet reciprocated by opening an embassy in Israel. Nor have Israeli officials been invited to visit the overwhelmingly Muslim country until recently.
Boyukaga Agayev, head of South Caucasus Research Centre, said the Israeli visit had been symbolically significant as well as posing dilemmas for a state like Azerbaijan, which was Muslim but secular – and keen to have feet in several camps.
“Azerbaijan is a secular state but most of the population is Muslim and overfriendly relations with Israel might be misinterpreted by allies in the Organisation of the Islamic Conference as a breach of Muslim unity,” Agayev said.
“This organisation supports Baku in opposition to Yerevan,” he added, referring to Azerbaijan’s rancorous dispute with its neighbour Armenia over the territory of Nagorny Karabakh.
A separate problem was Iran – a regional partner of Azerbaijan in the OIC but a bitter foe of Israel. “Tehran actively objects to us opening an embassy in Israel as well as to the visit of officials from that country to Baku,” Agayev continued.
One day before Perez’s visit, Iran reminded Azerbaijan of its feelings on the issue, urging Baku to close the Israeli embassy and describing the visit of the Israeli head of state as an insult to the Islamic world.
Azerbaijan’s foreign minister, Elmar Mammadyarov, replied that Baku would do no such thing while Iran remained friendly to archenemy Armenia.
“Iran’s declaration about the need to close the Israeli embassy in Azerbaijan is surprising,” he said, noting that Iran continued to “receive officials from Armenia at the highest level”.
After Iran’s protest failed to have any effect, Tehran recalled its ambassador to Baku, Muhammad Bagir Bahrami, “for consultations” while Perez was in the country.
Baku’s cool response to Tehran’s blustering reflects the fact that ties between Azerbaijan and Israel have become increasingly important for both countries.
The value of trade between the countries has risen to 3.6 billion US dollars annually, based on figures for 2008, substantially as a result of Azerbaijani oil exported to Israel through the Turkish port of Ceyhan.
Political scientist Rasim Musabayov says Tehran has little leverage over Baku, as a result of the growing mutual interests between Azerbaijan and Israel over trade and energy.
“Israel is interested in a relationship with a secular Muslim country, which is at the same time an energy supplier,” Musabayov noted.
“Israel is also the third buyer of Azerbaijan’s oil in terms of volume.
“Meanwhile Israel wishes to export agricultural products and technology to Azerbaijan and, as it emerged during Perez’s visit, military equipment as well.”
The Jewish community in – and from – Azerbaijan is another link between the two states.
More than 30,000 Jews still live in Azerbaijan. During the Soviet era, that number exceeded 100,000. Those who have migrated to Israel are seen as lobbyists for the interests of Azerbaijan in Israel – a fact to which Azerbaijan’s president, Ilham Aliev, referred during Perez’s visit.
“The Jewish lobby gives great support to Azerbaijan in international organisations and US,” Boyukaga Agayev said.
“The economic and political relationship [between the two states] makes the partnership of Azerbaijan and Israel inevitable – in spite of the possibly negative reaction of the OIC and Iran above all.”
Not everyone in Azerbaijan appreciates the burgeoning alliance between their country and Israel, however.
Some politicians and public figures strongly objected to Perez’s visit, especially those with religious sensibilities.
“Perez’s visit is appreciated very negatively from the point of view of Muslim unity, and as a Muslim I don’t want to host a person responsible for the recent Holocaust in the Gaza Strip,” said Haji Ilgar Ibrahimoglu, head of the Centre for Protection of Freedom Conscience and Religion.
The theologian was referring to Israel’s controversial military action against the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.
“It is especially bad to do this at a time when Baku is claiming it is centre of Islamic culture,” Ibrahimoglu noted.
“That doesn’t mean I support Iran… I also oppose the fraternisation between Tehran and Yerevan and [Armenian president] Serj Sargsyan’s visits to Muslim countries. I am just against people and countries that act aggressively to, and terrorise, Muslims.”
The theologian insisted he was not motivated by any feelings of anti-semitism.
“Jews are my brothers and sisters; they are very wise and talented,” he said. “I don’t associate the whole of Israel with terror and Zionism just as I don’t associate all Muslims with Taleban and al-Qaeda.”
Opposition on the part of active Muslims to Perez’s visit to Baku did not develop into mass protests.
Even Nardaran, a religiously conservative Muslim suburb of Baku, where the population is very supportive of Iran – and where they frequently demonstrate this by burning US and Israeli flags – saw no disturbances.
Political scientist Rasim Musabayov said the lack of a response on the streets to the Israeli visit was not surprising.
“The support base within Azerbaijan for Iran’s position is very weak,” he said. “In any case, Azerbaijan is a secular country.”
As for the simultaneous arrival in Baku of Russian president Dmitriy Medvedev while Perez was also there, this was another warning signal to Iran to back away.
Concerning plans to open an Azerbaijan embassy in Israel, Rasim Musabayov is sure of one thing, “It will be opened even sooner if Iran continues with its negative campaign.”
Kenan Guluzade is a Baku-based journalist.
UN WITHDRAWAL LEAVES BORDER GEORGIANS FEARFUL
Georgian minority in Abkhazia feels especially exposed now international monitor are packing their bags.
By Irakli Lagvilava in Zugdidi and Anaid Gogorian in Sukhum
United Nations observers are pulling out of Georgia, leaving many people who live in the conflict zone that they have been monitoring afraid for their security and prompting predictions of an escalation of tension.
The withdrawal process started on June 30 and is to be completed by the end of July.
The UN Observer Mission in Georgia, UNOMIG, was established in 1993. The mandate of its roughly 130 observers was extended for what we now know was the last time in February 2009.
On June 15, however, Russia torpedoed the mission, vetoing a UN Security Council draft resolution that sought a technical extension of the mandate.
Russia voted against the resolution because the mission’s title continued to describe it as a “mission in Georgia”. Moscow insists that breakaway Abkazia and South Ossetia are now independent states.
Earlier, the Permanent Council of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe failed to reach an agreement on an extension to OSCE monitoring operations in breakaway South Ossetia. The OSCE mission had been operating there since 1992.
The authorities in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, controversially recognised by Russia as independent states after a brief war last August, said they were willing to accept international observers remaining on their soil.
But they set a high price. They said they would do so only after the international community endorsed their declarations of independence – declarations that Tbilisi maintains are illegal.
The statements prompted an angry response from Georgia, from which the two lands effectively broke away in the 1990s.
Fears have been voiced in Tbilisi that without the presence of international observers, jitters in Georgia’s conflict zones with Abkhazia and South Ossetia may increase. They say foreign observers helped avert worse trouble.
Shota Malashkhia, who chairs the Georgian parliament’s temporary commission for the restoration of territorial integrity of the country, said there was a danger that Russia and its allies were deliberately upping tensions in the region.
“With the observers withdrawing, provocations in the region should not be ruled out,” he said.
“After last year’s war and in the light of the global economic turbulence, Russia cannot afford to embark on fresh large-scale aggression against Georgia.
“But it does want to see the situation here becoming strained.”
Malashkhia said the only way to prevent this tension in the conflict zone from continuing to grow was to deploy new international observers – preferably from the European Union.
“EU observers should be allowed to take the place of UNOMIG,” he said, referring to the UN mission’s acronym. “Russia has no right to hamper them from carrying out monitoring activities in Abkhazia.”
The opposition political movement, the Alliance for Georgia, for once agreeing with the government’s analysis of the situation, described UNOMIG’s withdrawal as a “tragedy”.
“Shutting up the UN Observer Mission in Georgia poses a great threat to the security of the country,” one of the leaders of the alliance, Victor Dolidze, said.
A Georgian expert, Gia Nodia, described Russia’s move to veto any extension of the UNOMIG mandate as part of its strategy aimed at forcing Georgia to accept the loss of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
Russia was following a “consistent policy aimed at changing all the existing formats of negotiations to adjust them to the much-talked-about ‘new realities’, which means ensuring that Abkhazia and South Ossetia participate in negotiations as independent states”, Nodia said.
Whether this strategy gets anywhere remains to be seen, the same analyst continued. “Russia wants the West to recognise Abkhazia and South Ossetia but the West won’t do so, [so] I don’t think anything is going to change anywhere in the near future.”
Meanwhile, officials in the breakaway statelets have eyed the departure of the UN with mixed feelings. Some officials in Sukhum, capital of Abkhazia, said they did not wish to see the observers go, viewing them as a valuable conduit linking these isolated countries to the world stage.
“We were interested in the mission continuing its work,” the Abkhaz foreign minister, Sergei Shamba, said.
“[The mission] opened contacts for us, making it possible for us to participate in the international [diplomatic] process; our problem would be discussed at UN Security Council meetings.
“But we couldn’t have agreed to a new mandate if it contained even a slightest mention of Abkhazia as part of Georgia. We were ready to preserve the mission, but not at any price.”
Irakli Khintba, a lecturer at the Abkhaz State University, agreed.
“It was through the reports of the UN Secretary General that the world received quite balanced information about whatever processes were taking place in Abkhazia,” he said.
“That is why the mission’s withdrawal will probably spell for Abkhazia a loss of an important means of accessing public opinion in the West and the entire world.
“In the long run, it may make it still more difficult for Abkhazia to achieve international recognition.”
Meanwhile, the withdrawal of the observers has left the population in the conflict zone on both sides of the de facto border feeling nervous.
The Georgian minority living on the Abkhaz side is especially concerned for its future.
People in the mainly Georgian Gali district of Abkhazia say that the UN mission has up to now been the main source of their sense of safety.
There are still more than 200 EU observers in Georgia but they are not allowed to enter Abkhazia. The EU observers may only patrol the Georgian-controlled part of the conflict zone and have no access to the Gali district.
“The UN cars used to patrol our village, and we would feel more secure,” Natela, 72, who lives in the village of Nabakevi, in Gali, said. “The end of the mission to me means the end of the hope for peace.”
“Of course, the UN mission had no police functions, and they did not investigate incidents, but they did prevent violence against civilians,” agreed Natela’s fellow villager, Zurab, 45. “I’m afraid life will become less safe here now they’re leaving.”
People who often cross the administrative border hope some new form of observer force can be set up and vested with greater powers.
“The international organisations, together with the conflicting parties, should try to create a monitoring group endowed with police powers,” said a member of the exiled pro-Tbilisi administration in Gali.
“But neither the Russians, nor the Georgians and Abkhaz are ready to take the step yet. And, as a result, ordinary people, who have been living perpetually in fear for 16 years now, continue to suffer.”
There seems scant chance of such a breakthrough now, however. The Abkhaz leader, Sergei Bagapsh, has declared that after the UN mission withdraws from Abkhazia, “no other international [monitoring] organisation will have a presence in the republic”.
Irakli Lagvilava and Anaid Gogorian are IWPR contributors.
ARMENIA: DEPARTING PHONE GIANT CLAIMS UNFAIR COMPETITION
Russian firm’s pull-out reignites debate on extent of illegal imports.
By Armenak Chatinian in Yerevan
Unfair competition is being blamed by Russia’s largest mobile handset retailer for its decision to quit the Armenian market.
Euroset, which emerged in Armenia in 2006, cornered a stake of between 10 and 20 per cent of the mobile phone market in the country.
Alexander Malis, president of Euroset, told IWPR that he had closed all 12 Armenian branches after concluding the playing field was far from even.
As a major dealer, Euroset had been able to set low prices for its appliances, Malis said.
“In spite of that, we still couldn’t compete with the local players in price terms because only a few of them imported the goods legally,” he added.
“Our company policy is to obey the laws of the country in which we are working. Unfortunately, not all other market players take this seriously.”
Malis insisted the company would re-enter the Armenian market only if its rivals obeyed the law so that everyone operated in a fair, open environment, Malis said.
The company’s withdrawal from Armenia comes as the country is being especially hard hit by recession.
Between January and May 2009, gross domestic product, GDP, fell by 15.7 per cent compared to the same period last year.
Budgets have been revised downwards as tax revenues for the first quarter of 2009 tumbled by 16 per cent compared to this time last year.
Like many other companies, Euroset was finding its operations in Armenia increasingly unprofitable.
But the state revenue committee rejected the company’s claims of unfair competition. It said a total of 44 firms imported mobile phones into Armenia and “each..pays the taxes prescribed by law”.
However, Euroset is not alone in complaining about the alleged inequity of the Armenian mobile phone market.
One local representative of a small business said illegal imports of cell phones were common.
A popular way to import phones without paying import taxes on them, he said, was to have the new devices registered by airport customs as “accessories” to existing phones.
The dealer said he sometimes used this method himself in order not to pay duties and taxes on his imports. In this way, he felt able to compete with larger companies operating in the market.
Other companies have reportedly tried to escape duties by concealing imported phones. The only risk with this strategy was losing the phones to vigilant customs officials.
“There is a big risk in importing mobile phones illegally because customs officials can detect the goods at any time and confiscate them,” the dealer said.
Armenia’s customs service does periodically clamp down on such illegal imports.
In February 2009, for example, officials mounting an on-the-spot inspection of passengers on a flight from Dubai uncovered 54 phones on one passenger.
But another businessman working in the same field said the mobile phone market in Armenia was so competitive that small businessmen stood no chance of competing if they paid customs on imported handsets.
“If small-scale importers don’t use illegal methods, they just can’t compete in the local price field,” he said.
Few outside experts or international watchdogs doubt that corruption in general remains a major problem in the Armenian economy – as it does throughout the Caucasus.
The Global Corruption Barometer for 2009 published by the watchdog Transparency International also revealed growing public distrust of business throughout the region.
“Businessmen use bribes to influence social policy, laws and rules, in other words they are invading the state,” the survey said.
Transparency International said 38 per cent of respondents to a survey conducted throughout the region viewed their governments’ efforts to fight corruption as ineffective.
Armenak Chatinian is a reporter with Capital daily in Yerevan.
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