AZERBAIJAN: BAKU UPSET OVER LACK OF KARABAKH PROGRESS, STEPS UP ANTI-WESTERN RHETORIC

Eurasianet
Dec 4 2009
NY

Azerbaijani officials have taken aim at the West in recent weeks,
in what some analysts believe could be an attempt to secure Russia’s
support for a Baku-friendly settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh peace
process.

The most surprising proposal in recent days to come out of Baku was
a call for Russia to reestablish a military presence in Azerbaijan;
Russian troops departed the country in 1993, and no mention had been
made, until now, about their possible return.

On November 26, MP Gudrat Hasanguliyev proposed that Azerbaijan should
join the Collective Security Treaty Organization, a Moscow-dominated
military pact, and allow Russia to establish a military base in
Azerbaijan. Hasanguliyev, a leader of the United Popular Front of
Azerbaijan Party, presented the idea as a trade-off for Russian
recognition of "Azerbaijan’s sovereignty over Karabakh."

Although Baku’s national security strategy, approved in 2007, clearly
defines "pursuing Euro-Atlantic integration" as a diplomatic priority
for Azerbaijan, Hasanguliyev and others now complain that Baku has
received little from the West in exchange for its interest in closer
ties. Georgia’s own experience with the Atlantic Alliance suggests
that Azerbaijan would never gain NATO membership, Hasanguliyev
contended. Baku has not applied to join the Brussels-based military
alliance.

Representatives of the government and the governing Yeni Azerbaijan
Party have not disavowed Hasanguliyev’s statement. Moreover,
the statement appears to be part of a trend. At a November 20
conference in Baku organized by the presidential administration’s
Center for Strategic Research, the United States and European Union
came in for heavy criticism for their alleged failure to resolve the
Nagorno-Karabakh dispute. Russia, which mediates the talks along with
France and the United States, escaped censure. [For background see
the Eurasia Insight archive].

The pressure recently put on Armenia and Turkey to sign protocols on
rapprochement "has never happened on the Karabakh issue," charged
Novruz Mammadov, head of the presidential administration’s Foreign
Policy Department. Such an imbalance could lead to changes in
Azerbaijan’s foreign policy, he suggested. [For background see the
Eurasia Insight archive].

Mammadov went on to accuse the West of ingratitude for Azerbaijan’s
cooperation with the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline. The lack of
economic assistance for the $1 billion Mammadov says Azerbaijan lost
from the 2008 economic crisis shows that "the West forgot us and
helped Armenia," he said.

Deputy Parliamentary Speaker Ziyafet Askerov went a step further:
Since force has been shown to be more effective than international
law — a reference to the 2008 Georgia-Russia war and recognition of
Kosovo — "the Karabakh conflict [could] be solved by the Azerbaijani
army," he threatened. "US foreign policy has become a hostage of the
Armenian lobby," he added.

Discontent over Western criticism of the trial of two Azerbaijani
bloggers – "Western media wrote more about the bloggers’ trial than
about the Karabakh conflict since it began," Novruz Mammadov claimed
– and perceived NATO ingratitude for the 90 Azerbaijani peacekeepers
serving in Afghanistan has added to the chill.

Baku analysts are divided over the cause of this rhetoric.

Azerbaijan’s irritation that more progress has been made on
rapprochement between Armenia and Turkey than with the Karabakh peace
process, now in its 15th year, could be driving Baku’s criticism of
the West, believes Elhan Shahingolu, director of the Atlas Center for
Political Research. "After the Turkish-Armenian protocols, Azerbaijan
feels itself isolated and needs fast progress on the Karabakh issue,"
Shahinoglu said.

Russia’s absence from the criticism of the Karabakh mediators indicates
that Baku hopes that "increased volumes of gas supplies and wider
economic cooperation" mean that "Moscow would help in the Karabakh
conflict," Shahinoglu added. Annual trade turnover between Azerbaijan
and Russia currently stands at $2.5 billion.

After a November 24 meeting with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev
at which the Karabakh conflict was discussed, an upbeat Azerbaijani
President Ilham Aliyev declared that "if every country would have
such relations as exist between Russia and Azerbaijan, there would
be no problems in the world," news agencies reported.

Another political analyst, Zafar Guliyev, believes that more than the
Karabakh conflict stands behind Baku’s anti-Western statements. An
uptick in Western criticism of Azerbaijan’s democratization and
human rights record – particularly the recent sentencing of two youth
activists to prison terms — could play a role, too, he said. [For
background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

As Baku sees the West start to stick its neck out on such issues,
the Azerbaijani government feels obliged to nudge it back into place,
Guliyev noted. "In 2009, the Western powers and Turkey undertook
efforts to reinforce their positions in the South Caucasus, and it is
likely that some forces in the Azerbaijani government are concerned
that the balance between the West and Russia [in the region], which
always helped Baku to maneuver, could be broken," Guliyev said.

Both experts, however, believe that the rhetoric does not signal an
official foreign policy line. The comments "so far" are "more muddled
and emotional statements than a defined concept," noted Guliyev.

Shahinoglu, who opposes closer ties with Moscow, also believes that
Baku is unlikely to change horses in mid-stream. "Azerbaijan has been
pursuing Euro-Atlantic integration for more than 15 years and such
abrupt changes now would not deliver anything positive," he said.

Editor’s Note: Shahin Abbasov is a freelance correspondent
based in Baku. He is also a board member of the Open Society
Institute-Azerbaijan.