A Northern Neighbor Growls, and Azerbaijan Reassesses Its Options

By SABRINA TAVERNISE
The New York Times
Published: 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.

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 figure. `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 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.’

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 the Russians.

But the issue closest to this country’s heart is that of
Nagorno-Karabakh, an area in its southwest where Armenian separatists
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.