AZERBAIJAN TO IMPLEMENT PARTNERSHIP FOR PEACE.

President Haidar Aliyev of Azerbaijan told a NATO delegation in Baku that his country supported the Partnership for Peace program’s goals to "consolidate general peace" and that Azerbaijan would shortly submit its presentation document outlining joint activities with NATO. The delegation informed Aliyev that a NATO representative in Azerbaijan would shortly be appointed and tasked to coordinate cooperation between NATO and Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry. Aliyev used the opportunity to appeal for NATO political support in the negotiations with Armenia over Karabakh. (13)

With Armenia and Karabakh dependent upon tacit Russian support to freeze their gains in Karabakh, and having uneasy relations with NATO member Turkey, Azerbaijan pursues the most Western-oriented policy among Transcaucasia’s states at this stage. However, injecting the Karabakh conflict as an issue in Azerbaijan’s relations with NATO risks derailing those relations.

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