RUSSIAN READOUT ON MINDEF SERDYUKOV'S VISIT TO

C O N F I D E N T I A L BAKU 001431 SIPDIS SIPDIS FOR EUR/CARC E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/03/2017 TAGS: PGOV PREL RS AJ SUBJECT: RUSSIAN READOUT ON MINDEF SERDYUKOV'S VISIT TO AZERBAIJAN Classified By: CDA Donald Lu for reasons 1.4 b and c. ¶1. (C) Russian Ambassador to Baku Valery Istratov briefed Charge on Russian Defense Minister Anatoliy Serdyukov's November 27-28 visit to Azerbaijan. Istratov was short on details, explaining that the visit was only military-to-military in nature, and that no meetings happened on the political level. He said that the visit was part of the series of visits that Serdyukov was making to all Russian military installations outside Russian territory. He confirmed that the two defense ministers did discuss the issue of technical upgrades to the Gabala Radar Station. ¶2. (C) Istratov said that "nothing dramatic" resulted from the visit, but noted that Istratov and Serdyukov spent almost the entirety of Serdyukov,s visit together, one-on-one. This included forty minutes before a one-on-one meeting, six hours of transit time between Baku and the Gabala radar station, and then a return to the Ministry of Defense for further one-on-one discussions. There were no meetings with the President, who was out of town or the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as both Azerbaijani FM Mammadyarov and DFM Azimov were in Madrid for the OSCE Ministerial. He also pointed out that on the return from Gabala, Serdyukov and Abiyev were supposed to return directly to the airport, however, for unknown reasons they first returned to the Ministry of Defense, where they continued to meet one-on-one for another hour. ¶3. (C) Istratov noted that although Serdyukov and Abiyev initially were scheduled to travel to Gabala via helicopter, a decision was made to travel overland due to high winds. Istratov said that in his view the Azerbaijanis probably used the weather as an excuse not to travel via helicopter so that Abiyev could get more face time with Serdyukov, but he also noted that there was not "one second of hesitation" about not going to Gabala. Istratov said that Serdyukov was particularly interested in how Gabala affected the Russian state budget, and asked a number of questions about the amount of electricity and water consumed, who paid the utility bills, etc. ¶4. (C) In regard to technical upgrades for Gabala, Isratov said that this remained a bilateral issue etween Azerbaijan and Russia, and that no decisin had been made. Istratov emphasized this would be a political decision. He said that in the meetings in which he participated, the Azerbaijani Government did not express a view on the issue of upgrades except to note that they would consider the decision only once the Americans and Russians could find an agreement on the issue. He went on to say that the Azerbaijanis would naturally be cautious about upgrades to Gabala because of the reaction from Iran, but that if the American and Russians sides would jointly propose upgrades to Azerbaijan they would be unable to resist such an approach. LU