Esteemed Mister Rector!

Ladies and Gentlemen!

I am very pleased of my being in Paris, France and participating at the meeting with you and with such a prestigious audience. I am quite aware of the caliber of France, Paris and people gathered here, therefore I feel honored of this meeting.

Before speaking about issues on the subject you are interested in, I would like to introduce a little clarity to my biography that you just got familiarized with. By the end of 1982, after Leonid Brejnev`s decease, I was invited to Moscow to the post of the Vice-Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, at the same time; I was elected the Politburo member of the USSR. I have been holding this position until 1987 when I had to resign due to the fundamental disagreements in viewpoints with the leadership of the Soviet Union, especially between Mikhail Gorbachev and me. After that, I was subjected to persecutions. You may know from the history of the Soviet Union that those, left the high post were completely isolated from the public and political life.

On January 20, 1990, in other words, 7 years ago, when the leadership of the Soviet Union decided to enter a big unit of soviet troops to Baku and suppressed the national movement, I opposed this action and left the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Following to this, I was subjected to persecutions, a great libel campaign was run against me and I had to leave Moscow in summer, 1990. Since I was in opposition to the unjustified actions on the Soviet Union leadership, unfortunately, I was not allowed to live in Baku too, where I lived the main part of my life. I had to go farther, to Nakhchivan, my homeland, where I was born in and left when I was young. At that time Nakhchivan was in blockade, as it is now. I have been living there completely isolated as long as three years. In June 1993, when Azerbaijan was on the threshold of the civil war, I returned to Baku upon the invitation of Azerbaijani intelligentsia and many others, representing different circles of our people and our republic. Firstly, I was elected the head of the Azerbaijani parliament, and later, in October 3, 1993, as it was said here, I was elected the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan.

I reckoned it necessary to add this information to that voiced here before so that you do not think that everything was easy for me in my life - I was member of Politburo and after this, I became the President of Azerbaijan.

Let`s return to the main topic of our conversation. In 1993, when I returned to Baku, Azerbaijan was in trouble, the civil war was underway. In fact, this was the second year of the independence of the Republic of Azerbaijan. In order to give you idea on our country, I have to inform you about events happened long before becoming of Azerbaijan an independent state.

The republics that were part of Soviet Union obtained their state independence in the result of collapse of the Soviet Union in the end of 1991. However, the processes underway in 15 republics of the former Soviet Union were not the same, they were quite different. In 1988 Azerbaijan faced an aggression, Armenia set against Azerbaijan claiming to incorporate the Mountainous Garabagh region of the Republic to Azerbaijan to its territory. Mountainous Garabagh is a small region of Azerbaijan, after establishment of Soviet regime in Azerbaijan, it was awarded a status autonomy within the Republic of Azerbaijan in 1923. One should say that in the conditions of the soviet system this small autonomous region was developed sufficiently. However, the nationalist and extremist circles both in Armenia and in other countries, including the party of "Dashnaksutun" have been regularly creating an atmosphere of the necessity of adherence Mountainous Garabagh to Armenia. However, the attempts undertaken in different periods were not successful. They were prevented and as I said before, Mountainous Garabagh was enjoying a successful development.

I would like to inform you that by 1988, when this conflict just started the population of Mountainous Garabagh was 170000 people. The 30 percent of them were Azerbaijanis, the other 70 percent - Armenians. There was nothing surprising. The people of different nationalities live in the other regions of Azerbaijan, like in other republics of the Soviet Union and in other countries. However, a movement for incorporation of Mountainous Garabagh established both in Mountainous Garabagh and Armenia, this developed further into the armed conflict. By the way, it should be noted - I am frank with you and I refer to reliable historical sources and materials - that the interview of professor Aganbekyan to the French "Humanité" newspaper in the end of 1987 served a spark and really an incendiary spark for inflammation of this movement. In his interview he declared that Mountainous Garabagh should be incorporated to Armenia, he discussed this issue with the leader of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev and Gorbachev gave his consent for that. Of course, there were other similar interviews. I told you about this interview since Mikhail Gorbachev was directly referred to here. Everything started with this and it resulted in the 8-years long bloody war.

I think that when Azerbaijan and Armenia were within Soviet Union - more than 3 years passed from 1988 to 1991 - the soviet leadership could prevent this conflict and inhibit its expansion and resulting in such grave consequences.

The unfair attitude of Soviet leadership towards Azerbaijan caused the high tide of discontent to communist regime and socialistic system amongst people of our republic. When the rage of people caused by unfair attitude of communist leadership of the Soviet Union reached the utmost point by the end of 1989, the soviet leadership and personally Gorbachev decided to suppress our people entering a big armed unit of soviet troops to Baku in January 20, 1990.

The January tragedy in 1990 worsened the public and political situation in Azerbaijan. Finally, all this resulted in instability in our republic. Using this opportunity, some rogue forces run the struggle for grabbing the power. In October 1991, when Azerbaijan got its state independence, it was experiencing a hard political situation. All this was undermining the state governance in Azerbaijan resulting in coups d`etat. Such a coup d`etat took place in Azerbaijan in 1992 and Azerbaijan Popular Front came to power. However, it could not stay in the power even a year, the armed bands revolted and overthrew it, the civil war unleashed in June, 1993 in Azerbaijan. In these conditions I had to assume the responsibility for provision of stable management in Azerbaijan in 1993. Despite great difficulties, the state management in Azerbaijan has been stable in the course of the last three years.

However, at that period Azerbaijan was in war with Armenia. Using the lack of internal political stability in Azerbaijan, as well as the outside strong support rendered by some countries, the armed units of Armenia managed to occupy a part of Azerbaijani territory. Actually, some 20 percent of Azerbaijani territory is under Armenian occupation. This includes Mountainous Garabagh and surrounding districts the total territory of which is about 16 thousand m². These districts are adjacent to the territory of Armenia. Some one million of our citizens were expulsed from the occupied territories of Azerbaijan, they are settled in different regions of Azerbaijan, many of them live in tents.

An agreement on cease-fire was achieved with Armenia in 1994, it is being respected as long as 2 years and 7 months. However, Azerbaijan got its territorial integrity and state boundaries violated, our country incurred the great material and moral damage. We don`t want the resuming of military operations, we consider that this problem must be settled peacefully and we do our best for this on our behalf. The main condition for the peaceful solution of the problem is withdrawal of Armenian armed units from all of the occupied territories of Azerbaijan, restoration of territorial integrity of our country and return of all our citizens to their homelands. We consider it possible to give the highest status of self-governance to Mountainous Garabagh within Azerbaijani state and guarantee the safety for all population of Garabagh. This is a compromise formula and we compromise in order to establish the peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan and create a peaceful situation in our region and in Caucasus in whole. However, Armenia holds a destructive position, therefore we can not achieve the settlement of this problem. Armenia strives for achievement of independence by Armenia and incorporate it to its territory consequently. We do not agree with this, neither will we do it ever, we can not let another country have a part of our territory. No country can do that either.

Armenia demonstrated its destructive position in OSCE Lisbon Summit in December, 1996. OSCE Minsk Group dealing with the settlement of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict has proposed a project of principles for the peaceful settlement of the conflict. Three main principles were in the project that was envisaged to be included to the final document of the OSCE Lisbon Summit: recognition of the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan and Armenia, offering of a high status of self-governance to Mountainous Garabagh within Azerbaijan, guarantee of safety for all population of Mountainous Garabagh.

We agreed with these principles as the main ones for the peaceful settlement of the conflict. However, Armenia rejected them and didn`t give its consensus for the inclusion of this project to the OSCE final document. Nonetheless, these principles were reflected in the special statement of OSCE Secretary due to the firm position of Azerbaijan and fair attitude of other countries. Amongst OSCE member countries only Armenia rejected these principles, consequently rejecting the main principles of United Nations, OSCE and the international law in general. However, we think that the in the result of the support of these principles by OSCE members, especially the intense activity of Minsk Group member countries these principles can serve as main principles of peaceful settlement of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict and establishment of stable and long lasting peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

I said you all this in order to let you have an idea on which conditions the independent state of Azerbaijan carries out the process of national state building and settles its social and economic problems.

As for conflicts in Caucasus, the situation here in general, one can mention Georgian and Abkhazian and Georgian-Ossetian conflicts in the territory of Georgia, the conflict between Russia and Chechnya, there are some other conflicts in the other regions of Caucasus. Thanks to Lord, they didn`t expand. We think that the firm adherence to the principle of the inviolability of territorial integrity of any sovereign state is of crucial importance for both settlement of Armenian -Azerbaijani and other conflicts in Caucasus. We are for the inviolability of territorial integrity of all countries in the world. We condemn the separatism, aggressive nationalism and international terrorism in every corner of the planet.

Despite all these problems and difficulties, Azerbaijan keeps to exist and develop as an independent state and strictly follow the way of democratic, civil and civilized state building and establishment of democratic principles in all spheres of the life. In November, 1995 we held the nation-wide voting and adopted the first ever democratic Constitution of Azerbaijan. At the same time, the first multi-party principle based elections to the Parliament of the Republic of Azerbaijan was held. The regulations of the Constitution are being realized, the parliament works, many laws for the democratic development of our country were adopted. The political pluralism exists everywhere in Azerbaijan, we pay a significant attention to the protection of human rights, individual rights and freedoms. Azerbaijan is a multinational, three religions - Islam, Orthodox Christianity and Judaism are practiced freely in our country. We adhere the way of reforming our economy on the basis of free market principles, the state property is being privatized and we are expecting to privatize some 70 percent of state enterprises in the forthcoming two years. We have adopted a thoroughgoing and quite revolutionary for our conditions law on land reforms. This law envisages the privatization of the land enabling their owners to sell and give it to other people.

These measures give their results. The social and economic condition in Azerbaijan is being improved, the inflation was low in the course of the last two years. For instance, the monthly level of the inflation makes less 1%, in general it made less 5% in 1996. The rate of national currency - manat remains stable, recently its rate in comparison with that of American dollar has improved. We have taken numerous measures for the liberalization of the economy and the foreign trade. We actively involve foreign investors for making investments to the Azerbaijan`s economy, participation at the privatization process and joint exploitation of major industrial and agricultural enterprises of our country.

Azerbaijan possesses abundant natural wealth, great economic, industrial, agricultural, scientific-technical and intellectual potential. The main way that we are following now is formation of the Azerbaijan`s economy based on world economy principles, using the experience of the most economically advanced countries of the world.

We have achieved many successes in the sphere of joint exploration of oil and gas fields of Azerbaijan together with foreign companies. In September 1994, we have signed the first large contract with consortium of international oil companies on joint exploration of the oil fields in Azerbaijan, it is called the "Contract of Century". Today, in Paris, in the Elysee Palace, the fifth contract on joint exploration and exploitation of the "Lankaran-daniz" and "Talysh-daniz" oil fields, located at the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea was signed between the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic and "ELF Aquitaine" and "Total" oil companies of France in the presence of the President of France Jacque Chiraque and the President of Azerbaijan. The contract signed today envisages the joint work during 25 years and investment of 1,5 billion US dollars. According to the initial calculations, it is expected to extract some 350 million barrels of oil from these oil fields. Contracts signed in the course of the last two years envisage investment of some 15 billion US dollars in the economy of Azerbaijan. 16 transnational companies from 11 countries of the world take part in these contracts.

I think that these figures give you idea on how Azerbaijan rationally use its natural resources and high technologies and capital of the most advanced countries in order to unify its efforts to those of the world community. Hopefully, all that I say will persuade you that our country is open to the world. The main objective of Azerbaijan is to integrate its economy to the world economy. All conditions for the liberal entrepreneurship are provided in our country, the foreign investments are guaranteed by our legislation, Constitution and, of course, the presidential power. All this enable us to say that Azerbaijan has a bright economic and social future. We are confident that following the way of democratization in all spheres of our life we will manage to take Azerbaijan to the line of the most civilized countries of the world. Azerbaijan tries to develop friendly relations with all neighbors. I spoke you about our mutual relationships with Armenia. Russia is our neighbor country in the North, Iran - in the South and Georgia - in the West. Turkey is also our bordering neighbor. Except Armenia, we maintain normal relationships with all these countries and we will do our best for their further strengthening.

Azerbaijan has a great importance due to its geographical location. I think that its geographical and political location is important not only for us but also for the world community. Azerbaijan is located on the conjunction of Europe with Asia. As a European country, it is on the edge of Europe. Azerbaijan strives to be a European country. We are actively cooperating with European Union, our application for obtaining of guest status in the European Council was accepted, and we hope to obtain full membership shortly. We take an active part in OSCE; our country is the member of almost all international organizations.

Azerbaijan is of great importance not only for Caucasus but also for the region that is much larger than Caucasus. I think that existence of stability in South Caucasian region - I speak about Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia - is an important factor both for whole Caucasus, and also for Russia and other neighboring to Caucasus countries. We are trying to perform our duty of the important factor to the best of our abilities. I think that if we succeed in settlement of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict, it will result in settlement of all other conflicts in Caucasus and establishment of peace and stability in this region, which will be of great importance for other countries and for Europe in whole. On our behalf, we are doing our best and we will keep on doing that for the achievement of the stability and peace in Caucasus.

Actually, Azerbaijan enjoys the stable internal political situation. Unlike past years, we have been ensuring the complete public and political stability in the country in the course of the last three years. The state have full control over the situation in the republic and I am sure that the situation in Azerbaijan will improve every month, every year.

We appreciate the development of the French-Azerbaijani relationships. Today, during my talks with the President of France Jacque Chiraque, Head of the General Assembly, Minister of Commerce and Mayor of Paris I declared once again that we should make full use of all available possibilities for the expansion and deepening of cooperation between France and Azerbaijan in the spheres of economy, culture and politics. I think that the contract signed today with "ELF Aquitaine" and "Total" companies of France is a good basis and a persuasive appeal to all other companies of France in order to get them interested in strengthening their efforts for the cooperation with Azerbaijan.

Ending my speech I would like to say that I am very pleased of my being in France, Paris today. The history and experience of the French Republic, experience of France in democracy and in other spheres is a rich source and example for us in democratic state building in Azerbaijan. I express my profound respect and consideration to the French Republic and French people. I wish you and all French people happiness, prosperous life and new successes. I am ready to answer your questions. Thank you for your attention.

De Montbrial (the President of the Institute of International Relations of France): I thank the President of Azerbaijan Heydar Aliyev. Taking into consideration that it is late already, I would like to limit the discussion only three questions to the Head of the Azerbaijani state. I think that these questions will be asked in any case.

Question: The first question is of informative character, related with the problem of the inheritance of the Soviet Union. Is the problem of inheritance between Azerbaijan and Russia settled or there are controversial points that collide Ukraine with Russia?

Second question: You spoke about oil; however, you didn`t mention problems related to pipelines. Could you say some words in this regard?

Third question: You mentioned that you have good relationships with Iran. Can the problems related to Iranian Azerbaijan be expected?

Heydar Aliyev: As for Russia - the heir-at-law of the former Soviet Union - of course, there are still problems unsettled. When the Soviet Union collapsed and Azerbaijan achieved its independence, I was not in Azerbaijan, i.e. I was in Azerbaijan, but I was not in politics here. When I became the President of Azerbaijan in October, 1993, I started to analyze. I have realized the property of the Soviet Union was distributed unfairly for Azerbaijan. As I mentioned here, I had been the head of the Republic of Azerbaijan during 14 years. I was one of the leaders of the Soviet Union during more than 5 years, I was aware of what is at the territory of Azerbaijan in the soviet period. Unfortunately, Azerbaijan was not let have what it had. It was unfair. We raised some small issues recently. However, it is late now. Nevertheless, I have already said that all this was unfair.

As for oil pipeline, the consortium of foreign oil companies has taken a decision to construct two pipelines for oil export together with State Oil Company of Azerbaijan. One of the oil pipelines - the one stretched to the Novosibirsk port on the coast of the Black Sea passing through Russian territory - was constructed partially, in 1996 the construction was terminated. This pipeline enables us to deliver the oil to the Black Sea coast and further. Another pipeline that we are going to begin constructing in March and finish by 1998 will pas through Georgian territory and come out to Supsa port on the Black Sea coast too. However, according to the contract signed in September 1994, it is envisaged to construct the biggest pipeline up to Ceyhan port on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey. There are several projects and proposals regarding the itinerary of this pipeline. No final decision is still taken in this regard. I think that we will have to construct this pipeline too. Because after signing of each contract the overall volume of oil to be extracted in Azerbaijan in the future is increasing. The foreign oil companies operating in Kazakhstan propose to export the extracted oil through Caspian Sea and Azerbaijan to Europe. It indicated too the high volume of the oil to be exported via the territory of our country. Therefore, these pipelines should be constructed. They are needed to export the oil from Azerbaijan, Caspian basin and Central Asia. It confirms once again the considerable geographical, political and strategic importance of Azerbaijan.

As regards your third question related to Iran, as I have mentioned earlier, we maintain friendly relationships with this country and we take necessary steps to strengthen and develop them. As for Azerbaijanis living in Iran, indeed, they are many there. I don`t have a precise figure, but it is said about 20-30 millions. They are citizens of Iran. Today Mister Jacque Chiraque said that there are 5 million Muslims in France. They constitute a part of French people. Azerbaijanis living in Iran are Muslims also, they constitute a part of Iranian people too. From this viewpoint, I don`t see any problem. I have said already that we support the territorial integrity of all countries - that of Azerbaijan, Armenia, Russia, France and Iran.

De Montbrial: I thank President Heydar Aliyev for accepting to participate at this meeting and answering these important questions. I wish a Happy New Year to the leader of Azerbaijan and persons accompanying him and let me propose to finish the meeting.

Heydar Aliyev (jokingly): No, let me say. Firstly, it is not democratic. You asked your questions and did not let others to do the same. We came to France to learn democracy; however, it became apparent that an authoritarian regime exists in this Institution. Therefore, I am going to stay here one more hour and answer your questions. You should know that we follow the way of democracy and I am ready to answer any question of anybody. Speaking in general, I used to be unsatisfied if I asked a few questions.

Question: Mister President, I would like to know about the actual status of Azerbaijani-Russian relationships and how do you asses the participation of you country in CIS?

Heydar Aliyev: We have good relationships with Russia, we have friendly relationships. We wish them were better and we take necessary steps on our behalf for this.

As for CIS, we are member of CIS. However, we do not agree with some issues. We behave in a democratic manner; we express our viewpoint and our position. Speaking in general, we reckon that CIS must be a more democratic union. The democratic principles must be established broadly in this commonwealth and CIS must be improved and developed.

Question: Mister President, you said that Azerbaijan is a multinational country, Russians and Jews live there. Could you say how many Russians and Jews live in Azerbaijan and what kind of rights they have?

Heydar Aliyev: I can say it. The number of Russians is more than 300 thousand and Jews are about 50 thousand in Azerbaijan. They enjoy all rights related to their citizenship being the full citizens of Azerbaijan. We are glad that people of these nationalities live in our republic. I must say that some immigration of Russian speaking people from Azerbaijan took place from 1988-89 to 1993. we prevented it. Some of them left Azerbaijan scared of the instability in our country, in some cases they were treated unfairly. We eliminated this problem. Actually, Russian speaking population live in normal and stable conditions in Azerbaijan. MPs of Russian and Ukrainian nationalities sit in our parliament, the people of these nationalities work in state and economic bodies. We consider the multi-nationality of Azerbaijan as a wealth of our country. Armenia has achieved mono-nationality. There live nobody but Armenians. I think that they committed a mistake. However, that is their own business.

Question: I would like to precise my question. Were the people of other nationality urged to accept Azerbaijani citizenship or they did it voluntarily? Second question: What kind of rights enjoy foreigners living in Azerbaijan but still willing to keep the Russian passport?

Heydar Aliyev: You know, nobody was obliged to accept Azerbaijani citizenship, those who wanted did it, and others did not. There is freedom in this regard in our country. There are Russians in Azerbaijan who have Russian citizenship, we do not mind. The citizenship is not determined by ethnic identity. I think that the same is in France. We are guided by this principle in Azerbaijan.

Question: I would like to ask a question on the status of the Caspian Sea. It seemed from what you said that there is no problem in this connection. Can the lack of agreement on the status of the Caspian sea inhibit or delay the exploration of the oil fields there?

Heydar Aliyev: You know Caspian Sea has been existing since thousands of years. However, its status was never defined. Actually, there is a great need in that. However, negotiations on this issue are underway amongst Caspian Sea countries. I think that we will achieve a common viewpoint some day. Nevertheless, it can not create any difficulty to the countries to explore the oil fields in its sector. Division of the Caspian Sea on the sectors has been defined long ago. We use the established experience and we think it justified.

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