By Trend
Russian historian, political analyst, professor Oleg Kuznetsov
spoke to Trend regarding the role of liberation of
Azerbaijan’s ancestral lands by the Azerbaijani army in the Second
Karabakh war, which lasted 44 days.
Under the leadership of the Supreme Commander of the Armed
Forces, President Ilham Aliyev, Azerbaijan liberated its lands from
Armenian occupation.
- In your opinion, what is the significance of Azerbaijan's
victory in the Second Karabakh War for the development of the
country and expanding of its cooperation with other countries?
- I think that the victory in the war with Armenia is primarily
important for Azerbaijan as a powerful factor in civil
mobilization. Today, hundreds of thousands of Azerbaijanis are
ready to invest to restore their ancestral villages in the
territories liberated from the occupation, to bring foreign
investments to Azerbaijan in order to revive the lands previously
seized and ravaged by the Armenians.
From November 18 to December 23, I had visited in Azerbaijan,
went to Karabakh, and eye-witnessed all that abomination of
desolation when entire cities were dismantled for building
materials that were sold to Iran. I’m more than sure that half of
the new buildings in the northern provinces of Iran are made of
Azerbaijani-made sawn stone and provided with Azerbaijani-made
windows, window sills, doors, pipes, water heaters and even
furniture.
In Moscow and other cities of Russia, I often have to talk with
Russian businessmen who are refugees from Aghdam, Fuzuli and other
formerly occupied Azerbaijani districts, whose business has a
multimillion turnover both in rubles and US dollars and all of them
are ready to rebuild at least their parental home and entire
villages, asking me to discuss possibility of realizing such plans
with the Azerbaijani authorities. The victory over Armenia provoked
the readiness of a significant inflow of foreign investments from
the Azerbaijani diaspora and its business partners from all over
the world.
The second most important result of the victory in the war with
Armenia is the consolidation of civil society in your country.
After November 10, 2020, it has become trendy to be a citizen of
Azerbaijan, and not an Azerbaijani as such. The important is the
spirit of personal political belonging to the victorious country
rather than ethnic identification, and I’m more than sure that most
of those Azerbaijani citizens who planned to emigrate in search of
a better socio-economic life now will decide to link their lives
with their historical homeland in order to work for its development
and prosperity.
The victory in the war will reduce the outflow of human
resources and capital from Azerbaijan, since domestic investments
will clearly be more attractive for the country's citizens than
foreign ones, and this will be conditioned not only by the
expectation of economic benefits, but also by the feelings of
patriotism and citizenship, which are now very strong among the
population of Azerbaijan.
- what potential you think the liberated territories of
Azerbaijan have?
- Unfortunately, I’m not an economist, to professionally answer
this question. I only get information about this from the media and
personal communication with the residents of Karabakh who were
forced to leave their homes 30 years ago. I’m aware of the high
agricultural potential of Karabakh in the spheres of gardening,
viticulture, plant growing, and animal husbandry. Agriculture is
the sector of the economy that can be restored with a minimum of
investment in the shortest possible time - from three to five
years. It’s said that through Karabakh, in 5 years Azerbaijan will
be able to double and in 10 years - triple the export of
agricultural products to Russia,.
I also know that Karabakh is rich in ore minerals - gold,
cobalt, copper, manganese, which can become a raw material basis
for the development of non-ferrous metallurgy and the production of
microelectronics in Azerbaijan. Of course, the technological basis
for the extraction of most of the minerals has been disrupted,
which will require expensive reconstruction, but the investments
will be justified because after the restoration of the mining
industry, a chain of new industries - metallurgy, electricity,
mechanical engineering will be formed.
I also heard about the presence of oil and gas fields in
Karabakh, although not as large in volume as in the Caspian Sea,
but quite sufficient to meet local needs. This factor will
significantly reduce the production costs of the Karabakh products
themselves and, consequently, their prime cost. Therefore Karabakh
can become the most profitable region of Azerbaijan. The
restoration of railway communication through Karabakh will allow
developing the transport and logistics component of the economy of
the entire South Caucasus, launching new mechanisms of
international economic integration.
- Multiculturalism in our country has deep historical roots.How
do you think the policy of multiculturalism helps Azerbaijan in
development of foreign policy relations?
- Multiculturalism as the pivotal basis of the official state
Azerbaijani ideology arose and formed in the conditions of an
active military-political confrontation with Armenia, the state
ideology of which is militant nationalism, mixed with the ideas and
ideologems of the Nazi Garegin Nzhdeh. I’m personally well
acquainted with the rector of the Azerbaijan University of
Languages Kamal Abdullayev, former state adviser on
multiculturalism, who began to promote his ideology first into
power and then into society in order to fill the vacuum that
happened after the First Karabakh War. I did my best to help him in
this matter, reporting on events and ideas in the world scientific
life in this area, therefore I witnessed how the generally abstract
theory of multiculturalism eventually turned into the practice of
the political life of Azerbaijan, organically fitting into it.
For the mentality of the Azerbaijani society, multiculturalism
was not something artificially introduced from the outside and
imposed through the systems of state propaganda. Its ideology fully
met the spirit and historical tradition of the Azerbaijani people,
which is why it “took root” so well on the “Azerbaijani national
soil”.
After gaining independence, Azerbaijan experienced two powerful
streams of cultural influence - the Turkic Islamic tradition and
its traditional European influence through the Russian-speaking and
English-speaking cultures. The peculiarity of the Azerbaijani, to
be even more specifically, the Baku society was that since the oil
boom in the mid-1800s and the construction of a railway to Iran
through Azerbaijan, your country has been a crossroads of cultures
and civilizations for nearly 200 years, for which multiculturalism
is a natural state, an integral part of the national mentality,
that opens up the widest possibilities for Azerbaijan’s
representation in the international arena.
We know very well that the Baku International Humanitarian Forum
and the Forum of Culture Ministers of Christian and Muslim
Countries are traditionally held in your country under the auspices
of UNESCO and ISESCO, as a result of which Azerbaijan has a
reputation with a democratic political regime in the system of
international relations. Two weeks ago the US included Azerbaijan
in the list of countries where freedom of conscience and religion
is really present. So multiculturalism is a real instrument of your
country's international politics.
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