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Ambassador of the Netherlands to Azerbaijan: â€œWe respect and support the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, the respect of international law is one the pillars of our Constitutionâ€

26 February 2010 09:40 (UTC +04:00)

- Mr. Ambassador, could you tell more about your country and cooperation with Azerbaijan. In which spheres the Netherlands is most interested to develop relations with Azerbaijan?

- The Kingdom of Netherlands is one of the oldest democracies of the world. Thanks to our colonial history we have a multicultural society with 17 million inhabitants. We have always been one of the main trade nations of the world. For example the system of Stock Exchange was invented by the Dutch. Amsterdam had the first stock exchange in the world. Thanks to these aspects we have a very open and transparent economy
The Netherlands economy has a large segment in services but also a huge agricultural sector. We have an excellent financial sector, the sixteenth largest in the world but moreover we are the second largest exporter of agriculture in the world.

It might be interesting for Azerbaijan to use Dutch experience in offshore, construction and design sectors. We are very proud that Royal Haskoning is involved in the realisation of the new port of Baku. I hope many more Dutch companies can join in this challenging project. I expect an agricultural mission later in the year. The excellent climate and agricultural tradition of Azerbaijan could provide a bright future for agricultural development.

- And when did the Netherlands embassy start its activity in Azerbaijan?

- Azerbaijan first opened an embassy in The Hague two years ago. The excellent work of your ambassador has led to a meeting of your president and my prime minister during the Prague summit in May. Consequently it was decided to open the embassy in Baku. Its activity started on 8 of October and the official opening will be on March 3.

- Is any official to take part in the opening of the Embassy?

- Secretary General of the Ministry of foreign Affairs, Ed Kronenburg is coming. He will have bilateral meetings during his visit to Azerbaijan.

- Will there be a Consular section in your Embassy to facilitate getting a visa to Schengen?

- No there will be no consular section. Visa can be applied through the French embassy in Azerbaijan. And I hope that the embassy of the European Union soon will take over this role. It will be much easier to have one common office for Schengen countries.

- On the event of the opening there will be an interesting exhibition. Could you please inform us?

- Many years ago the Dutch government financed the conservation of a huge photo collection by Russian photographer living in Tbilisi Dmitriy Yermakov (1845-1916). He took thousands of pictures of the Caucasus between 1872 and 1912. I knew there were more than 650 pictures of Azerbaijan in this collection. So I selected and bought 100 pictures for the embassy and I brought them to Azerbaijan to show them on the occasion of the opening of the embassy. There are pictures of Baku, Shusha, Gandja, Sheki and Shamakhi. I asked The Tagiyev House Museum to expose them because our embassy is too small. The exposition will last about 10 days. Nobody has seen the pictures before. And I will give them on loan to the Museum.

- And how do you estimate the Azerbaijan-Netherland cooperation in energy sector? Is Netherlands interested in cooperation with Azerbaijan in this field?

-Yes, but Dutch companies negotiate directly with Azeri companies. It is not for me as an Ambassador to give an opinion about it

- But is Netherlands supporting the European energy project - Nabucco ?

- The Netherlands is supporting this project, we think that energy diversity is very important but we have no Dutch company participating in Nabucco. It is a consortium of private companies. Politically we very strongly support Nabucco.

- Did the Netherlands companies have offices in Baku at the beginning of the 20 century during the Baku oil boom?

-â€œShellâ€ was very big in Baku before the revolution. Its main supply of oil came from Sumatra and Baku.

- But now? Do they have oilfields now in Azerbaijan?

- No, not at the moment.

- Are the Dutch companies interested in investing in Azerbaijan?

- There is not much Dutch investment in Azerbaijan because we have not finished the negotiation on an investment protection treaty. Moreover Azerbaijan is not yet a member of WTO.

- What about the cultural cooperation with Azerbaijan?

- Basically the cultural co-operation on the Dutch side is done by NGOs.
By this way it is prevented that politics have an influence on the cultural choice. The organization which is responsible for this is SICA and I hope that they will promote cultural exchanges.

- Could you voice the official position of the Netherlands on Nagorno-Karabakh conflict?

- As one of the members of the international community we respect and support the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan. The respect of international law is one the pillars of our Constitution. However neither the Netherlands nor the European Union is involved in solving the conflict. This is done but the Minsk group. We acknowledge that the Presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia meet each other regularly and we support this process.

- There are Caribbean islands in the Kingdom of the Netherlands which have a special status. Can this status be an example for the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict?

- We have a special constitutional arrangement between the islands in the Caribbean and the European territory of the Kingdom. There is a common foreign policy and defense. However there is no monetary union, Aruba and the Antilles, each have their own currency. I donâ€™t think this will fit completely the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh.
But in diplomacy one should never exclude an option.