VICTOR ORBAN BECOMES DANGEROUS FOR EUROPE
Ruzan Ishkhanyan
This gathering of Turkish-speaking leaders was dedicated to the 10th anniversary of their cooperation. Considering the fact that the Turkish Council was established in October, 2009, In Nakhichevan the goals and strategy of this group of states became clear. Let us note two factors: Uzbekistan's president has applied to join the Turkish council, and Hungary aims to have observer status in the organization. Even in Budapest, there has been a problem of opening an office.
Uzbekistan's aspiration to be a Turkic-speaking family can probably be understood, even though it has also made a statement to join the Eurasian Economic Community. As to the purpose of Hungarian Prime Minister Orban's activity, the answer to the question can be found in the Azerbaijani media outlet: "Orban has made an interesting proposal to bring the Turkish Council closer to the European Union." He particularly said that new institutions are being created in the European Union at present: the parliament has already been elected, they are still electing committee members. In these committees, the Member States nominate their representatives, putting serious problems before them. Hungary seeks to obtain portfolios related to the EU enlargement policy in the EU executive body. The Prime Minister expressed hope that his country would succeed in this direction, which would allow it to cooperate more closely with Azerbaijan, and would also be able to further Turkey's EU membership. " We are happy to be at your disposal to move in this direction," Orban said.
What does it mean to be at your discretion? Orban's recent deal with corrupt Azerbaijani authorities is not accidental. Let us recall the extradition of Ramil Safarov to Baku in late August, 2012, an Azerbaijani criminal who axed Armenian officer Gurgen Margaryan. Around the same time, $ 7 million was transferred from Baku to the account opened by a relative of an Azeri politician at a Hungarian MKB bank. The latter was linked to an offshore company in close contact with the Azerbaijani government. The transfer of this sum has made Baku-Budapest relations even closer. Information sources later in 2014, informed about the visit of Ilham Aliyev to Budapest during which he signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Prime Minister Orban. Afterwards, the meetings of the leaders of the two countries continued in a warm atmosphere.
According to public sources, the company (Metastar Invest LLP), which transferred $ 7 million from Azerbaijan to a Hungarian bank, also paid illegal money to PACE MP Luca Volonte. The investigation into this Italian lawmaker has served as a basis for revealing a corruption scandal, informing the international community about the bribery of some dishonest European lawmakers by the Aliyev administration. Another less important revelation was made: L. Volonte was not only a friend of Azerbaijan, but also of Hungarian Prime Minister Orban, whose regime’s periodic criticism in the PACE drew Italian MPs' backlash.
The revelation of the Azerbaijan-Hungary-Italy corruption scheme in an internationally prestigious institution gave rise to a great deal of outrage, completely exposing the criminal interaction between the tyrants of Azerbaijan and Hungary.
The Hungarian political leadership sold Safarov for the mentioned sum, who, after arriving in Baku, was proclaimed a national hero and acquitted of the punishment imposed by the Hungarian court for axing the sleeping Armenian officer.
We can state that the Hungarian Prime Minister is expanding his trade from one state to another. Orban, who is excited about the prospect of cooperation with Turkish-speaking countries, certainly has more expectations from this deal, otherwise he would not be generous with promises to bring the European Union closer to the Turkish Council. And he would not particularly say that he is at the discretion of Azerbaijan, Turkey and other member states. This should be viewed as a challenge to the EU, as Hungary's Prime Minister Orban is as tyrannical as the President of Azerbaijan, and only dirty deals can be expected from them. If Orban seeks to obtain portfolios from the EU that allow Hungary to become involved in the European Neighborhood Policy and advance the interests of the Turkish-Azerbaijani tandem, the institution must resist this threat in time.
The extradition of Ramil Safarov, who had axed an Armenian officer in Budapest under NATO's Partnership for Peace program, also showed the real face of the two dictators: The Hungarian court sentenced Safarov to life imprisonment. What happened was, first of all, a major blow to Hungarian justice, for which the protection of human rights had to be paramount. Europe must beware of the Aliyev-Orban-Erdogan partnership in order to maintain a democratic system of values and the image of European institutions.
Let us return to the Turkish Council Summit, and in particular the ideas expressed by Ilham Aliyev and Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The President of Azerbaijan, as always, presented the Azerbaijani-Artsakh conflict in the context of "occupation policy", this time with a new emphasis. Armenia strives to deepen its relations with Muslim countries but is destroying mosques that are considered sacred to the Muslim world. Armenia cannot be a friend of Muslim countries. In his turn, the Turkish president, has stated that standing up for the "national struggle" is the fraternal responsibility of Turkish-speaking states. We believe that the Kazakhs, Kyrgyz and Uzbeks, and perhaps even the Turkmen who are going to join the Turkish Council, have a problem in finding out how much the idea of a "national struggle" proclaimed by the Turkish leader sponsoring Islamist terrorists in the Middle East is in terms of the development of their countries.
As for the statement of the President of Azerbaijan, let us state that it was a rather unsuccessful attempt to impose upon the Muslim world against Armenia. The truth is that the Armenian people, historically at the crossroads of different civilizations, have respected other peoples' faiths and up to now have maintained good traditions of coexistence. And perhaps Aliyev is angry at the rebuilding of the Iranian mosque in Shushi, which is set to become an important center for Islamic culture research in the region, which Baku has attempted to present internationally as an Azerbaijani monument. To the disappointment of the President of Azerbaijan, let's state that we find exclusively Iranian cultural monuments in Artsakh, which are under the state care.