“Last year Azerbaijan has officially declared humanitarian demining as the 18th National Sustainable Development Goal, and we are working to ensure the recognition of this issue within UN,” says Ambassador Anar Huseynov in this interview with Albanian Daily News, whose main focus is precisely the alarming situation regarding the Armenia-planted landmines and explosive remnants of war. In the last four years some 370 individuals lost their lives in ERW-related incidents, whereas over the last 30 years, the cumulative toll of landmine victims in Azerbaijan has reached 3,448.

Mr. Huseynov speaks extensively on the matter, Azerbaijan’s efforts and the need for international assistance about an issue that has contaminated 13 per cent of the country’s territory. He also offers details on the ongoing peace negotiations with Armenia, while the last section of the interview deals with the current state of affairs regarding the Albania-Azerbaijan relations. 

-Your Excellency, you are welcomed to this interview with Albanian Daily News, focusing on the foreign policy of Azerbaijan, the relations with Albania and world peace and security.

A few days ago, ADN published an editorial by You on the critically threat of landmines in the territory of the Azerbaijan planted by Armenia during the war, leaving behind an explosive clicking clock, which is a disaster for the people of Azerbaijan - their life and economy- and cause of numerous victims in years. Which is the stance of internationals on this fatality (landmines) and how much is the international community (UN and specialized agencies) helping to overcome this situation to clean the area from the deadly landmines?

- First of all, I would like to thank ADN for placing information on one of the major challenges of Azerbaijan, which is landmine and explosive remnants of war (ERW) contamination of liberated territories after nearly three decades of military occupation by Armenia. Azerbaijan is among the most heavily mine-contaminated countries globally, with an estimated 1.5 million landmines and unknown number of ERW contaminating more than 13% of our territories, posing severe risks to civilians and hindering socio-economic development. From the end of war in 2020 until June 30, 2024, 219 landmine explosion incidents occurred, resulting in 369 victims, including children and women. Over the last 30 years, the cumulative toll of landmine victims in Azerbaijan has reached 3,448. Along with jeopardizing human life, the mines seriously challenge socioeconomic development, damage the environment and cultural heritage, hinder post-war recovery and development initiatives, creating serious obstacles for the return of 800 thousand internally displaced persons (IDPs), and ultimately impede the Sustainable Development Goals.

While taking relevant measures to tackle mine problem by internal resources, Azerbaijan has simultaneously launched multiple initiatives to attract the international community’s attention to this matter. Last year our country has officially declared humanitarian demining as the 18th National Sustainable Development Goal, and we are working to ensure the recognition of this issue within UN. In the meantime, Azerbaijan has launched an initiative to establish a Special Contact Group on Humanitarian Demining within the Non-Aligned Movement. The Contact Group has begun operating since last September. Besides, during the past three years, our country has hosted a number of international conferences, in collaboration with the UN, dedicated to the subject of mines to draw greater attention to this significant problem that troubles humanity in the modern era.

Azerbaijan also welcomes support by foreign partners in humanitarian demining in forms of direct assistance and collaborative actions. Mine Action Agency of the Republic of Azerbaijan (ANAMA) remains committed to enhancing its international collaborations. So far, Azerbaijan has received assistance from a number of countries. Most of them channeled their assistance via UNDP or specialized NGOs. In partnership with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), ANAMA benefits from specialized training provided to its site paramedics, enhancing the safety and efficiency of demining operations. Furthermore, the collaboration with Mines Advisory Group (MAG) has facilitated training and mentoring programs specifically for female de-miners, promoting gender inclusivity in the field. The contribution of Mine Detection Dogs (MDDs) by the US based Marshall Legacy Institute (MLI) plays a crucial role in bolstering ANAMA's capabilities in detecting landmines.

Working closely with the Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining (GICHD), ANAMA has improved its operational effectiveness through the adoption of the Information Management System for Mine Action (IMSMA) Core. This collaboration includes system usage assistance and comprehensive training for ANAMA experts, focusing on enhancing operational and informational efficiency. Some individual states, like Turkey, Italy, Saudi Arabia and others also pledged to provide direct financial assistance to ANAMA to support its demining operations.

With all this said, I have to underline that since 2020 foreign assistance has accounted for merely 5% of the resources dedicated to humanitarian demining. This is notably low, both in light of the gravity of demining challenges Azerbaijan confronts and when compared to the level of contributions typically made by the international donor community to similar issues elsewhere.

-Does Armenia, which planted those landmines, feels any responsibility and is it being held responsible giving account for these actions?

-I would not speak on behalf of Armenia on her feelings of responsibility for non-stop casualties due to planted landmines, it is obvious. Armenia’s refusal to present accurate maps of landmines it planted on our territory complicates the demining efforts, obstructs return of IDPs to their homes, and hence affects the peace-building process between two neighbors.

- You have mentioned peace-building process, how close are both countries to signing a peace treaty?

- After the war of 2020 Azerbaijan put forward the initiative of signing the peace agreement, and since then negotiation process between the parties has continued on the text of the bilateral agreement. Against the background of the Armenian side's disruptive position on the opening of transport communications in the early stages of the negotiations, the Azerbaijani side showed constructiveness and agreed to remove that topic from the text and discuss it separately, in order not to hinder the agreement. Armenia took advantage of this precedent and simply removed from the text the paras that do not satisfy her in the draft agreement, although these paras are of great importance for Azerbaijan and have not yet been agreed upon. Moreover, Yerevan proposes to sign the agreement in the said incomplete version. Baku evaluates this approach as not serious to say the least and, in fact, as an attempt to evade the provision of lasting and irreversible peace between the two countries. This approach actually serves not to ensure peace, but to gain time and enough foreign assistance to attempt a new aggression against Azerbaijan.

Therefore, the first and most important condition for peace is the commitment of Armenia to recognize and respect Azerbaijan's sovereignty and territorial integrity in a definite, unambiguous and irrevocable way. For this, the provisions directly questioning the sovereignty of Azerbaijan in the constitution of Armenia and other legislative acts should be removed, the claims made against Azerbaijan in various international court instances should be withdrawn, the OSCE Minsk Group and its related institutions should be officially abolished.

As for timing, Baku strives for the earliest possible conclusion of peace agreement between the Parties but would never accept ambiguity in the text when it comes to its territorial integrity and sovereignty, we cannot sign an agreement which later can be easily rejected and considered as unconstitutional one.

- Coming back to demining process in Azerbaijan, I wonder about the stance of Albania regarding this situation and is it helping Azerbaijan in any possible way?

- Both countries besides promoting bilateral agenda also closely cooperate on issues of mutual interest within international organizations, and so, on developments in our region Albania has always taken unbiased position based on international law, including humanitarian law. In other words, Albania is supportive to all initiatives taken within international organizations to speed up, to assist Azerbaijan in demining process. Since Albania has accumulated experience in this field, we also look for additional cooperation opportunities.

-When do you foresee to conclude the demining of the territory from the landmines?

-As noted above, demining process in the liberated territories is carried out mainly (95%) at the expense of Azerbaijan's internal human and financial resources. Thus, given the lack of local experts, high costs of demining added by current multi-billion expenditures on the restoration of the liberated territories, this process may drag on for many years without substantial assistance from individual countries and relevant organizations and funds.

- Please let me touch upon the region of Western Balkans against the background of the Ukraine war. How do you assess the situation in our region and the danger of a spillover of the conflict?

- After developments in Ukraine, which we have been witnessing for the last few years, all scenarios are possible, although the likelihood of spillover of the conflict to territories of NATO member states is doubtful.

- As a follow up do you see any perspective of an end of this war which as former US President Trump said a few days ago is a disaster, especially for Ukraine under attack by Russian aggressor?       

-I would avoid commenting what was said by former President, but to my view, end of the war will depend on willingness of all involved parties. As you know, respect for territorial integrity and sovereignty as well as good-neighborly relations are the most important principles of international law for Azerbaijan, and we do believe that involved parties will exert maximum of their efforts to come to the soonest settlement of the conflict.

-How do you assess the relationship of your country with countries of your region, especially with Turkey?

- Our geography is unique even if to compare with two other South Caucasus countries, and I mean geopolitical interests of regional powers and those beyond the region. During early years of its independence Azerbaijan faced aggression by Armenia and consequent occupation of 20% of our territories, relations with Iran and Russia went through uneasy path, with Georgia and Turkey we succeeded to come to common areas of interest, and as for our bilateral relations with Caspian Sea neighbors - Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan - they were growing slowly but steadily, in particular with the latter. Today, after decades of interactions with our neighbors, Azerbaijan above all, restored its territorial integrity and sovereignty and endeavors to reach good-neighborly relations with Armenia, established strategic partnership with Turkey, Georgia and Kazakhstan, significantly upgraded its interactions in different fields with its biggest neighbor - Russia based on mutual interest and equal partnership, and also favored stable and growing relations with Iran. You have highlighted our relations with Turkey, which has a good ground for it. Indeed, our countries are interlinked not only culturally but also with strong and mutually beneficial cooperation ties in all areas of bilateral relations based on trust and confidence. As I mentioned earlier, geopolitics of our region is uneasy and may be precarious, so Azerbaijan while aiming at enhancement of relations with all of its neighbors, also gets itself ready to tackle any possible challenges.

-Regarding the relations of Azerbaijan with Albania, how do you assess the politically and economic ties between them?

-The exchange of visits of the leaders of our countries in 2022 gave a great impetus to the bilateral relations between Azerbaijan and Albania. It was decided to establish embassies in both capitals, our embassy has been functional since April 2023, and the Albanian embassy in Azerbaijan will probably be operational within coming weeks. For the short period of time, we have succeeded to enhance our legal framework of interaction, abolished visa requirements and currently a number of bilateral papers are under consideration to promote relations in various areas of cooperation. We have a strong political exchange on both bilateral and multilateral tracks. As I stressed above, we highly value   Albania’s unbiased position towards developments in our region.

The economic cooperation perspectives between our countries are rather promising, in particular in the fields of energy, tourism, agriculture and trade. I presume when it comes to economic cooperation with Azerbaijan, for most of your readers gasification of Albania stands at the forefront. Baku also wishes to have Albania as a full-fledged member of Southern Gas Corridor (TAP is one of its segments) family benefiting not only from transit fees but as the rest of member countries also from consumption of our natural gas. Following the proposal of our Albanian counterparts we agreed on implementation of a pilot project on gasification of Korca. For the last 1 and a half years, intensive interactions have been underway between the interested agencies, pre-feasibility study of the project is ready, relevant intergovernmental agreement is signed and we target to finalize required legal phase of the project within next 3-5 months. Next year we have good chances to launch the construction phase, which in best case will take 1.5 years to complete. Relatively big projects need more time for implementation, but what is crucial, both parties have political will and financial potential to turn Korca gasification project into a reality.

Recently, Mr. Edi Rama, Prime Minister of Albania, publicly included Azerbaijan into the list of friendly countries to Albania, which we extremely appreciate. This mutual assessment places additional obligations on enhanced cooperation in the areas of shared interest to achieve concrete results for the well-being of our peoples.