Mr. Scotland Liddell, who represented the British Press in Mesopotamia and afterwards in the Baku region towards the end of the war, in a message from Baku, dated October 14, says:

I have had a long interview with Mr. Djafarov, the Foreign Minister of the Azerbaidjan Republic. Mohammed Josev Djafarov is a young man of about 33, although he impresses one as being very much older than that. A native of Baku he is a jurist, who was educated at Moscow University. He was a member of the Russian Duma, representing part of the Caucasus, and during the Kerensky regime he was a member of the Caucasian Soviet.

Mr. Djafarov said: “As regards the foreign policy of Azerbaidjan, I may say very briefly that we have simply aspired to a friendly and peaceful solution of all contestable questions with adjoining nations.  There is a characteristic contrast in the proceeding of the Azerbaidjan Government on the one hand, and the Armenian Government on the other, in regard to frontier territories. Enemy agents have for a long time inciting the people of Karabagh rise and fight against the Azerbaidjan authorities. In spite of these intrigues of the enemies of Azerbaidjan, however, the Government has succeeded in arriving at a peaceful agreement with the Armenian population of Karabagh, which forms the minority of the population of this region and which occupies only the mountainous part of the province.

“The result of the occupation of Mussulman lands by Armenian troops and the Armenian Administration’s neglect of the most important needs of the Mussulman has soon appeared. At the present time the Armenians have been obliged to leave Nakhitchevan, the greater part of Sharur-Daralagez, and part of the district of Erivan. As we desire, if possible, to solve without any acute conflict the question that is inciting the people. our Government has at the present time proposed to the Armenian Government to establish a provisional demarcation line between Azerbaidjan and Armenia, in hope of finding means of satisfy the local Mussulman population in a way admissible for both nations. The Azerbaidjan Government is willing, regarding this. to accept the proposal of Colonel Haskell, the Allied High Commissioner in Trans-Caucasia, as to the settlement of a neutral zone in the aforementioned regions on certain conditions.

“Both Azerbaidjan and Georgia are keeping outside this great civil war which is taking place in Russia proper. We will on no account tolerate Bolshevism here, but we are not in a position to take any active part in the Russian war. Like the new Republics of the north and west of the former Russian Empire – Finland, Lithuania, Lettland, Esthonia, and Poland, we will only fight when our enemies threaten our independence.

“Meanwhile, Denikin’s plans and intentions are such as to raise considerable apprehensions as to his assurances of his non-interference with the life of the Trans-Caucasian Republics. The handing over of the Caspian fleet to Denikin surprised us. It is really a threat against the capital of Azerbaidjan.”

Publication date 1920.