Azernews.Az

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is expected to visit Azerbaijan, Defense Secretary Robert Gates visiting Baku said during a meeting with Azerbaijani Defense Minister Safar Abiyev on Monday, according to the Azerbaijan Defense Ministry.
Gates said the letter sent by President Barack Obama to his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev, Secretary Clinton’s expected visit and his current visit to Baku were graphic examples of the United States and Azerbaijan being strategic partners.
Minister Abiyev said Baku was attaching great importance to its cooperation with Washington.
Speaking about combat against international terror and other security issues being jointly addressed by the two countries, Abiyev said the situation in the South Caucasus region remains tense and complicated due to the lingering Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict over Upper (Nagorno) Garabagh. He highly assessed the role played by the U.S. as a co-chair of the mediating OSCE Minsk Group and said more vigorous steps were being expected from Washington in this respect.
Abiyev also said the infamous Section 907, which bans direct US aid to the Azerbaijan government, was adversely affecting US-Azerbaijani relations.
Gates pledged to convey to President Obama upon return home the magnitude of the Upper Garabagh problem for Azerbaijan. He also said he would spare no effort toward canceling Section 907.
On Sunday, the US defense secretary was received by President Aliyev. The parties exchanged views on issues of military cooperation between the two countries, according to the presidential press-service.
Gates handed President Obama’s letter to the Azerbaijani leader. He stressed that as a US senator, Obama had paid his first foreign visit to Azerbaijan.
According to the BBC Radio correspondent who accompanied Gates, the Pentagon chief had arrived in Azerbaijan to convince its leaders that it is playing an important role in the international coalition, despite a perception that the United States is not paying enough attention to the country.
"I wanted to come through and meet with President Aliyev and reassure him that's not the case," Gates said. "I think there's going to be other visits [between U.S. and Azerbaijani officials] in the future. … It's important to touch base and let them know that, in fact, they do play an important role in this international coalition."
This is the US defense secretary’s first official visit to Azerbaijan. He is the most high-ranking official delegated by the US government to Baku in the past four years.
Since 2001, tens of thousands of flights for the war effort in Afghanistan have passed through Azerbaijan's airspace, a senior Defense Department official speaking on background told reporters, and about 100,000 troops have flown through Azerbaijani airspace in the past year en route to Afghanistan. About 25 percent of the coalition's supplies bound for Afghanistan pass through what's known as the Caucasus Spur, which includes Azerbaijan.
90 Azerbaijani peacekeepers are serving in Afghanistan as part of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).
Director of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute at the John Hopkins University, Dr. Svante Cornell, says the Obama administration "has realized that it could lose Azerbaijan".
He told Radio Liberty that the US government under President Barack Obama has never paid due attention to Azerbaijan.
"They have accepted the fact that Azerbaijan is there and it is our ally. But they don’t need attention. They have now realized that, should this policy persist, they could lose Azerbaijan."
Cornell said that consecutive visits to Baku by US Special Envoy for Eurasian Energy, Richard Morningstar, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates aim to ease tension that has emerged in U.S.-Azerbaijan relations. "The American government has realized that bilateral relations’ staying as they are could trigger some problems."
Regarding Turkey-Armenia relations, Cornell said Washington’s policy on the reconciliation process appears different from Baku’s stance.
"They say that these issues are inter-linked. But the U.S. was not accepting that. The Obama administration thought that the Turkish-Armenian normalization could be achieved without Azerbaijan’s consent. But they have now realized that it is challenging to foster development in the Caucasus without Azerbaijan."*