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  • The Azerbaijan Dilemma

    THE AZERBAIJAN DILEMMA

    Thomas de Waal

    The National Interest
    http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/azerbaijan-dilemma-6714
    April 2 2012

    Who would be Azerbaijan? The Caucasian country has just joined the
    UN Security Council, and it is wealthy as never before, its state
    coffers overflowing with oil and gas revenues. But its position in
    the world is barely easier than it was twenty years ago.

    Relations with Western countries could be described as transactional,
    dependent on energy supplies and the country's status as a transit
    route to Afghanistan. The Azerbaijanis blame a fairly difficult
    relationship with Washington on the success of the Armenian lobby
    in Congress in blocking the reconfirmation of Matt Bryza as U.S.
    ambassador, leaving the State Department again without an envoy in
    Baku. American officials say that the relationship is not bad but will
    not be better as long as Azerbaijan is so far from being a democracy.

    Azerbaijan has tricky relationships with all of its neighbors. The
    surrounding landscape offers suspended conflict with Armenia,
    simmering tensions with Iran and Turkmenistan, friendship masking
    perpetual suspicion with Russia and constant misunderstandings with
    its supposedly close Turkic cousin Turkey.

    Even the relationship with the closest neighbor, Georgia, is not
    trouble free. Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili talked up
    Azerbaijani-Georgian friendship on a visit to Baku in early March and
    even proposed that the two countries should make a joint bid to host
    the 2016 European soccer championship. But Saakashvili caused his
    hosts headaches in a speech to the Azerbaijani parliament, telling
    his audience (in the Russian language) that Moscow's foreign policy
    "has many names, but only one meaning for all of us, the neighbors of
    the Russian Federation: the end of our freedom and our independence,
    the end of the dream of Rasulzade and many others of our ancestors."

    The speech raised the ire of some Azerbaijani parliamentarians. They
    felt the Georgian president had offended protocol by using their
    parliament to attack a neighboring state with whom they try to
    maintain good relations. Saakashvili's many references to Mammad Amin
    Rasulzade, whose famous phrase "The flag once raised will never fall"
    he used to conclude his speech, also went down badly. Rasulzade was
    the founder of the first Azerbaijani independent republic of 1918
    and leader of the Musavat Party, now the leading opposition group
    to the government. He is a historical figure the current Azerbaijani
    governing elite prefers not to glorify in public.

    Israel is another high-maintenance ally. The two countries have a
    strong commercial and political partnership with both stressing their
    pro-Western foreign-policy orientation and resistance to radical
    Islam. But being Israel's best friend in this neighborhood comes
    at a cost. Unhelpfully for the Azerbaijani government, the Israeli
    media recently leaked the story of an arms deal worth $1.6 billion
    between Israel and Azerbaijan. The relationship causes friction with
    Turkey-the Turkish ambassador to Baku complained last year that the
    Azerbaijanis should support Ankara in its row with Israel, just as
    Turkey supported Azerbaijan in its conflict with Armenia. And, of
    course, it draws hostile attention from Iran.

    Azerbaijan joined the UN Security Council in January. That is both
    a mark of respect and a big responsibility. As one Western diplomat
    in Baku put it to me, "You can hide in the UN General Assembly, you
    can't hide in the Security Council." The Azerbaijanis now have to
    take a line on issues such as Syria where they might have preferred
    to keep silent before.

    As Turkey is finding on an even larger scale, it is easier to
    declare big foreign-policy ambitions than to realize them. Capacity
    is stretched. There are plenty of people in the new Azerbaijan who
    are good at making money and doing deals but a limited few who bear
    the burden of making a coordinated foreign policy.

    At the same time, the government in oil-rich Baku is increasingly
    opaque. Foreign visitors and diplomats complain that they find it
    harder to gain access to the government officials making decisions
    and struggle to understand what government strategy is. This is
    the context in which Azerbaijan faces what could be its biggest
    foreign-policy test since the war with the Armenians ended in 1994:
    how to handle a looming crisis with Iran, a near neighbor, fellow
    Shiite state and strong ideological adversary.

    The working presumption has always been that because both countries
    have the ability to hurt each other badly, they refrain from doing
    anything that drags them into full-scale confrontation. Iran has
    influence over dozens of mosques and tens of thousands of Islamists in
    Azerbaijan who could rattle the Azerbaijani state. It also provides
    an economic and energy lifeline for the Azerbaijani exclave of
    Nakhichevan. Azerbaijan has the capacity to stir up parts of Iran's
    huge Azeri minority if it wanted to.

    That presumption is now being tested. In January, the Azerbaijani
    government said its websites had been attacked and defaced with
    anti-Israeli messages, then announced it had foiled an Iranian
    plot to assassinate a Jewish teacher and a rabbi in Baku. An
    Azerbaijani parliamentarian took the opportunity to needle Tehran
    with the suggestion that his country should be renamed "North
    Azerbaijan"-implying that Iran's Azerbaijani provinces would thereby
    become "South Azerbaijan."

    Thankfully, the situation has quieted down again. The Azerbaijani
    officials I talked to are focused on managing it. But if more trouble
    strikes, Azerbaijan will need to keep its nerve and-an unaccustomed
    predicament in recent times-find a way to ask for help.

    Thomas de Waal is a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for
    International Peace.

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