A NORTHERN NEIGHBOR GROWLS, AND AZERBAIJAN ADJUSTS
By Sabrina Tavernise

New York Times
October 22, 2008

BAKU, Azerbaijan — This country has always had tricky geography. To
its north is Russia. To its south is Iran. And ever since the collapse
of the Soviet Union it has looked west, inviting American companies
to develop its oil reserves and embracing NATO.

But since Russia and Georgia fought a short war this summer, its path
has narrowed.

Azerbaijan, a small, oil-rich country on the Caspian Sea, has
balanced the interests of Russia and the United States since it won
its independence from the Soviet Union. It accepts NATO training but
does not openly state an intention to join. American planes can refuel
on its territory, but American soldiers cannot be based here.

"Azerbaijan is doing a dance between the West and Russia," said Isa
Gambar, an Azeri opposition politician. "Until now, there was an
unspoken consensus. Georgia was with the West, Armenia was an outpost
of Russia, and Azerbaijan was in the middle."

But with the war in Georgia, Russia burst back into the region,
humiliating Tbilisi and its sponsor, the United States, which issued
angry statements but was powerless to stop Russia’s advance. It was
a sobering sight for former Soviet states, and one that is likely to
cause countries like Azerbaijan to recalibrate their policies.

"The chess board has been tilted, and the pieces are shifting
into different places," said Paul Goble, an American expert on the
region, who teaches at the Azerbaijan Diplomatic Academy in Baku,
the capital. "What looked balanced before does not look balanced now."

A Western official said, referring to Azerbaijan: "Georgia was very
much a wake-up call. This is what the Russians can do and are prepared
to do. Georgia events underscored their vulnerability."

Azerbaijan will be under more pressure from Russia when undertaking
energy contracts and pipeline routes that Russia opposes, said one
Azeri official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of
the delicacy of the matter. Officials from Russia’s gas monopoly,
Gazprom, on a trip here this spring, offered to buy Azerbaijan gas at
European prices, rather than at the former reduced rate. That offer,
if the Azeris chose to accept it, could sabotage a Western-backed
gas pipeline project to Europe called Nabucco.

Rasim Musabayov, a political commentator in Baku, said that under
the new conditions, many Azeris think that selling gas to Russia is
not such a bad idea.

New projects carry political risks, he said, and if Russia "will pay
us a price we agree on for our gas, why build something new?"

"You can’t have a foreign policy that goes against your geography,"
he added. "We have to get along with the Russians and the Iranians. We
can’t afford to provoke them."

After the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia was weak, with a collapsed
economy and a scattered, inconsistent foreign policy. Azerbaijan
used that to its advantage. Now Russia is stronger and speaks in one
voice, and Azerbaijan has to be more careful in its relations with
its big neighbor.

Georgia is now so hostile to Russia that working with it as a partner
in the region is increasingly difficult, said Borut Grgic, chairman
of the Institute for Strategic Studies in Ljubljana, Slovenia, an
expert on Caspian energy infrastructure.

"Azerbaijan will never seek E.U.-NATO integration at the expense of
functional and working relations with Russia," he said. The Georgian
president, Mikheil Saakashvili, he said, "is making this balance
difficult to sustain."

At no point in the crisis did Azerbaijan take a position that would
have made Moscow bristle. When the fighting began, Azerbaijan appealed
to Russia, asking it to preserve its infrastructure in Georgia —
a port, an oil terminal and a pipeline. Moscow agreed, according to
Azerbaijan’s foreign minister, Elmar Mammadyarov.

Azerbaijan helped European diplomats enter Georgia while it was
under attack, but when the leaders of Ukraine, the Baltics and
Poland traveled to Tbilisi to express solidarity with the Georgians,
the Azeri president, Ilham Aliyev, did not make the trip. And after
Vice President Dick Cheney visited Baku in September, Mr. Aliyev flew
immediately to Moscow for talks with Russian leaders.

But the issue closest to this country’s heart is that of
Nagorno-Karabakh, an area in its southwest where Armenian separatists
rose up and formed an independent enclave in the 1990s. For years,
Azerbaijan has tried, through international mediation, to reclaim
the territory and allow Azeri refugees who fled to return.

Since the war this summer, the Russians seem to have grabbed the
initiative. President Dmitri A. Medvedev, on a trip to Yerevan,
Armenia, this week, said Russia was pushing for a meeting between
the Azeri and Armenian presidents.

"I hope such a meeting will take place in Russia," he said, Reuters
reported.

Russia has traditionally backed the Armenians, but times are changing.

"One of the positive effects of the Georgian crisis is that the
Kremlin will try to show that they are not crazy guys," an Azeri
official said. "That they can be good neighbors, too."

The Russian attitude toward Azerbaijan, one Azeri official said, was
that "the U.S. has come to your country and is plundering your natural
resources, but not giving you any support. Why not go with us instead?"

Mr. Cheney, on his visit to Baku, also pledged to redouble efforts,
causing some Azeris to remark ruefully that it took him eight years
to make the trip.

Ali Hasanov, an official in Azerbaijan’s presidential administration,
said concrete progress would win many points in Baku.

"If a big country takes a position, stands on the side of unbroken
territory, we will follow its interests," he said.