Ambassador says Aliyev ‘in perfect health and in charge’

Presidential elections are scheduled to take place in the country in October and the ambassador said Aliyev would stand as a candidate to score a victory that he said was "certain."

"He is going to be a candidate and he will definitely win," he said.

Ambassador Aliyev said that Azerbaijan under Haydar Aliyev has enjoyed stability for a decade after a bloody conflict with Armenia over the occupied Nagorno-Karabakh, just before unrest within the country turned into fully-fledged civil war.

Aliyev served as the country’s president for two consecutive terms over the last decade. A constitutional change in 1995 barred Azerbaijanian citizens from holding presidency for more than two terms.

Since then, he was elected in 1998 elections and will stand for presidency for a last time in October polls.

Aliyev’s opponents have grown stronger over recent years and he is expected to compete with a number of popular politicians in the upcoming elections but Ambassador Aliyev predicted that a victory of the opponents whom he said were "radical and inexperienced" was unlikely.

"They ruined Azerbaijan in the past; the economy collapsed, inflation skyrocketed and brought the country on the verge of a civil war," he said.

In an interview for the Turkish Daily News, Isa Gambar, one of Aliyev’s strongest rivals, pledged last week closer ties and a true alliance with Turkey, normal relations with Azerbaijan’s neighbors and more work for the operationalization of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan project, which is set to transfer Azeri oil to Western markets through the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan.

Aliyev, on the other hand, said President Aliyev’s skills were incomparable.

"He prevented a civil war; he stopped the war with Armenia and there has been no bloodshed in the Caucasus for the last nine years; he brought stability and prosperity to the region through the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan project," he said.

The ambassador also dismissed Gambar’s criticisms that Aliyev was paying a lip service to relations with Turkey and said he was truly committed to developing relations with Turkey and the rest of the Turkic world, claiming that the president has "risked his political career and life" to bring the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan project into life and to offer Caspian energy resources to use of the Turkic world.

"Turkey and Azerbaijan are one nation with two states. The strategic partnership of Azerbaijan and Turkey will continue forever," he went on.

The Aliyev administration has been subject to criticisms from opposition parties, including Isa Gambar’s Musavat, on the grounds that Turkish businessmen in Azerbaijan were facing obstructions.

Ambassador Aliyev said thousands of Turkish businessmen were operating in Azerbaijan without any obstruction and they were given President Aliyev’s personal help whenever bureaucratic obstacles prevented their business.

He said Aliyev worked to make sure that Turkey will get a bigger share in the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan project and added there was effective military cooperation between the two countries, with Turkish officers providing training to the Azerbaijanian army.

When Azerbaijan’s goal of becoming a NATO member is realized, the military cooperation will grow even further, he said.