Baku Sun, 15 April 2005

BAKU, Azerbaijan - In a display of the Caspian region's strategic importance to America, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld took time out from a fast moving tour of America's war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan, to pay a third visit to Azerbaijan Tuesday night, his first arrival in a year.

According to local reports, during his roughly three-hour visit Rumsfeld met with his Azerbaijani counterpart Defense Minister Safar Abiyev and addressed Azeri peacekeepers in Iraq and the current pace of settlement talks regarding the Karabakh conflict.

While brief, the trip generated huge interest among Azerbaijani media, with some reports calling the visit "shrouded in secrecy." Local analysts blamed the suspicion on recent international speculation that the United States seeks to establish a major military presence in Azerbaijan. The so-called Caspian Guard will reportedly be headquartered in Baku and comprised of American troops trained for rapid response missions for regional crises. The guard is part of Rumsfeld's overall strategy to re-craft America's overseas military units from bulky Cold War bases to more deployable units flexible enough to put together different force packages for different operations. While specific information on the unit is hard to obtain, a recent report in the Wall Street Journal quoted Chief of U.S. European Command, General James Jones addressing the U.S. Congress about the guard. Jones said the U.S. plans to allocate some $100 million to cover the guard's first 10 years of activities.

The guard will reportedly be one of the U.S. European Command's 10 posts, with the Caspian region included in its area of responsibility. The command center will boast the most up-to-date radar equipment and also focus on dealing with potential terror attacks on the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline.

The center will boast the capability to assist the Azerbaijani government in monitoring ship navigation related to Caspian oil operations and also help the government's battle against drug and weapons trafficking.On Wednesday, U.S. Ambassador to Azerbaijan Reno Harnish reacted to questions about the guard by attempting to cool rumors that Washington intended to position military forces in Azerbaijan.

"Washington hasn't any plans on the accommodation of any military forces in Azerbaijan to safeguard the security in the Caspian," Russia's news agency Interfax quoted Harnish as saying.

• At the Airport

Abiyev said he stressed to Rumsfeld the need for Washington to abolish Section 907 to the Freedom Support Act.

The two also exchanged views on the peaceful resolution to the Karabakh conflict, with Abiyev explaining that no considerable progress had been made to settle the conflict. Abiyev noted that Armenia had not given up its policy of aggression and continues to receive weapons with the aid of its allies.

"The BTC pipeline will be commissioned shortly. However, the unresolved status of Karabkh represents the greatest threat to the project," he said.

Rumsfeld said he met with Azerbaijani peacekeepers during his visit to Iraq and thanked Abiyev for their outstanding service. He highly valued Azerbaijan's integration into Europe and stressed that the U.S. backs Baku in this area.

After the meeting, Rumsfeld left Baku for Pakistan, where President Ilham Aliyev had left for on an official mission earlier in the day.