AZERBAIJANI PRESIDENT FINALLY INVITED TO WASHINGTON
By Alman Mir – Ismail

Eurasia Daily Monitor, DC
June 15 2005

Azerbaijani President Aliev plans to visit the United States. On June
7, Azerbaijan Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov made a sensational
announcement. According to him, President Ilham Aliev plans an official
visit to the United States, and Azerbaijan’s ambassador to Washington,
Hafiz Pashayev, is in talks to determine the date of the visit.

The news, which might seem routine for others heads of state, is
highly important for the Azerbaijani president and regional politics
in general. For nearly two years, since his election to the presidency
in October 2003, President Aliev has waited for an official invitation
from U.S. President George W. Bush for him to visit Washington. While
his Georgian and Ukrainian counterparts Mikheil Saakashvili and Viktor
Yushchenko were given warm welcomes at the While House immediately
after their elections, the extended delay in the invitation for
Mr. Aliev had become embarrassing, to put it mildly. Aliev and
Bush have met on several occasions during summits of international
organizations, yet only a handful of Azerbaijani watchers believed
these get-togethers could compensate for the humiliation that the
Azerbaijani authorities were forced to experience.

The Azerbaijani opposition has cheered the cold shoulder from
Washington, pointing to the allegations of election fraud in 2003
and the stated unwillingness of the American president to “work
with authoritarian regimes.” Indeed, the majority of local experts
believe that the 2004 U.S. presidential election made it impossible
for the incumbent Bush to invite President Aliev to Washington, in
order not to risk attacks from his opponents. The lack of democratic
developments in Azerbaijan, particularly evident with the ban on public
rallies and the crackdown on opposition parties, further delayed the
invitation. This, in turn, worsened bilateral Azerbaijani-American
political relations. In Azerbaijan, a country where symbolic gestures
carry considerable significance, the lack of attention from the
American political leadership was perceived as a slap in the face.

Immediately following the recent invitation, local analysts began
speculating on the causes for the changed American attitude. Some
believed that it was tied to the recent opening of the strategic
Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, actively supported by the White
House. After all, U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman participated
in the inauguration of the pipeline in May and brought with himself
a congratulatory letter from President Bush. Others argued that the
invitation was a reward for the Azerbaijani consent to host mobile
American military bases. The rumors about such bases have been in the
air for more than a year, and the repeated visits by U.S. Secretary
of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to the Azerbaijani capital only further
increased them. The ongoing negotiations over the Karabakh conflict
and the seemingly growing rapprochement between the Azerbaijani
and Armenian positions are cited as another possible reason for
the invitation.

Yet, there are also those who believe that the invitation from
President Bush is related to the November parliamentary elections in
Azerbaijan and the desire of the American policymakers to encourage
free-and-fair elections. This interest can be tied to President
Bush’s recent drive for freedom and democracy in the world, and his
enthusiastic support for democratic reforms in the post-Soviet space
and Middle East, shown during his visit to the Georgian capital,
Tbilisi, last month.

Indeed, experts on Azerbaijani politics believe that only through
engagement and active lobbying can the U.S. administration achieve
tangible results in this country. Immediately after the U.S. State
Department condemned the crackdown on the Azeri opposition rally on
May 21, the Azerbaijani authorities, for the first time in 19 months,
allowed the opposition to stage a street demonstration on June 4. And
it is not a coincidence that the invitation from the White House came
at a time when Senator Charles Hagel (R-NE), chairman of the Senate’s
Foreign Relations Committee’s Subcommittee on International Economic
Policy, Export, and Trade Promotion, visited the Azerbaijani capital
and stressed the importance of democratic elections.. “At the meeting
with President Ilham Aliev we discussed the necessity of providing
transparency, fairness, and democratic parliamentary elections,”
Senator Hagel reported during the press conference in Baku. Similarly,
on June 7, President Bush sent a letter to the 12th Caspian Oil and
Gas Exhibition, once again showing the growing American attention to
the Caucasus region.

Sources close to diplomatic circles say that the American
administration will use Aliev’s visit as an opportunity to show their
support for more political and economic reforms in Azerbaijan. This, in
turn, might untie President Aliev’s hands in his efforts to modernize
the country and fight the conservative old guard that maintains tight
control over the political and economic life of the nation.