Azerbaijan | No 2 | March to April 2007
Country Stability and Conflictive Events (relative)
Source: FAST event data
AZERBAIJAN
| Trends in Conflict and Cooperation
As the graph shows, the country stability is still at a high level with a significant downward trend of conflictive
events since the end of January. Nevertheless, the political landscape has not only been calm. An issue of concern
during the period under review has been the persisting and growing tensions within the ruling coalition In Azerbaijan.
During a debate on March 16 on the government’s report of its activities, parliamentary
deputy Hüsseyn Abdullayev, formerly a loyal supporter of the government, launched a
harsh attack on Prime Minister Artur Rasizade and his cabinet. Three days later
Abdullayev was summoned to the prosecutor’s office and arrested for “hooliganism and
assault.” He was later stripped of his parliamentary immunity and given two months
pre-trial detention in Baku’s Bailovo prison. There have been other incidents like the
exclusion of Sirus Tebrizli from the governing Yeni Azerbaijan Party (YAP) on 27 March.
After accusing the head of presidential administration, Ramiz Mehdiyev, to be the
“leader of a traitors group,” which feed President Ilham Aliyev with false information
about the situation in the country, Tebrizli was expelled from YAP for violating party
rules. It is obvious that tensions within the once monolithic governing elite in Azerbaijan
are related to the fact that President Aliyev tries to replace the governing party’s old
guard, which have been loyal to his father for many years, with younger officials whose political views are closer to
his own.
Another persisting problem is the situation of press freedom in Azerbaijan with at least seven journalists being
jailed in the past year. On 20 April a court in Baku sentenced Eynulla Fatullayev, editor of the two independent
newspapers – Realnyi Azerbaijan and Gündelik Azerbaijan – to two and a half years in prison after having been found
guilty of “criminal libel” and “insult.” Fatullayev was accused of giving false information about the Khojaly genocide
and insulting Azerbaijani people. Fatullayev’s arrest outraged his colleagues and on 24 April around 60 journalists
defied a ban on rallying in the center of Baku under the slogans “Freedom to Eynulla Fatullayev!” and “Stop
suppressing freedom of speech in Azerbaijan!” The police broke up the protest quickly and no one was hurt.
Another case happened on 4 May, when Rafiq Tagi, a journalist of the monthly newspaper Senet, and Samir
Sadaqatoglu, the newspaper's editor, were sentenced to three and four years in prison for “incitement to national,
racial and religious hatred,” which was allegedly contained in a philosophical article on European and Islamic values.
Furthermore, there have been attacks on Azadlyg newspaper correspondent Nijat Hüsseynov, spokesman for the
National Independence Party Ali Orujev as well as the abduction and beating of Azadliq employee Fikret Hüsseynli
and Bizim Yol and the editor Bahaddin Haziyev. All these persons adhere to opposition views and criticize
governmental policy. Very significant for this development is the fact that Azerbaijan announced that it would no
longer cooperate with the media rights group “Reporters without Borders”, which had criticized the country for
repressing the media.
But there are also some signs of the government’s good will: Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev pardoned
over 110 prisoners on the Novruz holiday in March. Another bigger amnesty act was approved recently by the
Azerbaijani parliament on 8 May; approximately 1,500 convicted prisoners will be released and another 7,500
prisoners will receive reduced sentences.
Representative of the NATO Secretary General on South Caucasus Robert Simmons visited Baku on 18 March
and concluded that cooperation is strong and on a high level. According to experts, Simmons offered to start a dialog
for Azerbaijan to join the NATO. But Azerbaijan's leaders have never stated explicitly that they either wish to join the
alliance (as neighboring Georgia has done), or that they have no intention of doing so (as Armenia has done). It is not
clear whether this ambivalence reflects the unwillingness to worsen relations with Russia, or an implicit acknow-
ledgment that Azerbaijan's armed forces are still far from meeting NATO standards, or a reluctance to implement the
related broader reforms required of NATO candidates. Another reason for Azerbaijan’s hesitation about becoming a
serious NATO candidate is the fact that it would probably have to enter into the anti-Iranian coalition formed by the
United States, which could raise the conflict potential between Azerbaijan and Iran even more.
The Azerbaijan Minister of Foreign Affairs, Elmar Mamedyarov, paid an official visit to the U.S. on 22 March
where he met with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. A memorandum about cooperation in the energy sphere
between Azerbaijan and U.S. was signed in Washington. This document provides not only the rendering of state
assistance in the establishment of energy corridors, but also includes cooperation on energy, democratic and market
FAST Update | Azerbaijan | No 2 | March to April 2007
Contact
FAST International
Country Team: Azerbaijan
Sonnenbergstrasse 17
3000 Bern 7
Switzerland
azerbaijan@swisspeace.ch
www.swisspeace.org
FAST International is the early warning program of swisspeace,
covering 25 countries/regions in Africa, Asia and Europe. Based in
Bern, Switzerland, the program is funded and utilized by an
international consortium of development agencies, including the
Austrian Development Agency (ADA), the Canadian International
Development Agency (CIDA), the Swedish International Development
Cooperation Agency (Sida) and the Swiss Agency for Development and
Cooperation (SDC).
economic reform, and security, which is essential to Azerbaijan. An US statement said that the deal was mainly aimed
at facilitating pipeline projects that bypass Russia.
At the same time, the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Araz Azimov visited Brussels. At the meeting with the
European Union and NATO envoys, Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement and transport relations were discussed.
Araz Azimov communicated Azerbaijan’s readiness to render Europe assistance in the diversification of energy
resource supplies and in reducing European dependence on Russian energy resources. He further claimed that
officially Baku is ready to become the mediator in the negotiations on transportation of Central Asian (Turkmenian
and Kazakh) resources to Europe. This policy can be seen as directed against Russia and therefore important how
Moscow would react to Azerbaijan’s ambitions. There is still close cooperation between Russia and Azerbaijan – for
instance, the actual production sharing agreement between the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan and Russian
RussNeft Oil Company to develop oil fields in Azerbaijan. In addition when Azerbaijani President Aliyev met Vladimir
Putin in Moscow on 27 March, the Russian President was unusually friendly to him, but still resentments occur all the
time. Hence the Russian reaction to the Azerbaijan efforts came already on 12 May, when Putin signed several energy
deals with the leaders of the Central Asian states of Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, which allow Russia to
continue to act as the chief distributor for the region's energy exports for the foreseeable future. The deals could
simultaneously help Moscow realize several other geopolitical goals – destroying Azerbaijan and Western pipeline
plans for the region, as well as increasing the dependency of Central Asian states on Russia.
In spite of a booming economy, Azerbaijan's financial system is still underdeveloped and largely cash-based.
The banking sector is weak and is dominated by two state-owned banks: International Bank of Azerbaijan and Kapital
Bank, which together control about 50% of the assets in the sector. They are significantly undercapitalized and not
interested in playing a part in modernizing the banking system, which made rating agency Fitch place Azerbaijan’s
banking system along with Iran’s in one of the highest risk categories.
While Azerbaijan faced an average annual inflation rate at 9.4% in 2006, the country will have inflation in the
double digits in 2007 estimates the Cabinet's Financial Policy Officer Oqtay Haqverdiyev. Based on the latest
statistical data, he is expecting the annual inflation rate to settle at 16.6%. He further added that people should not
be discouraged by the latest data as the salary rate increase is around 26% and has recently beaten the inflation rate
in Azerbaijan. But this will not solve the problems and anger of growing parts of the population, which do not profit
from higher salaries and suffer a lot from price inflation. On 18 March up to 2000 citizens protested in Baku against
this situation with slogans like “Where is the money from oil” and “No to high prices,” while some demanded the
government’s resignation. As we have already mentioned in the last FAST Update, the government is reacting to the
situation and worked out a Social Rehabilitation Program for families with low income. Also governmental allocations
for regional development will be increased as President Aliyev promised during his visit to Jalilabad on 9 April.
Current data and behavioral and social trends indicate a very high probability for further growth of the HIV
epidemic. The dramatic socio-economic changes associated with the transition period have had a negative impact on
employment, people’s social well-being, and the social safety net. All these factors have contributed to a rise in drug
use, commercial sex work, and migration. The rapid increase in new HIV infections in Azerbaijan is directly related to
the increased number of injecting drug users (IDU) and migrants coming back from Russia. Although the epidemic is
concentrated among IDUs, especially along the drug trafficking routes, an increase has also been reported in
commercial sex workers. Furthermore, migrants create a situation where the epidemic could easily spread to other
parts of the population. Linked closely to the HIV/AIDS pandemic is the upsurge of tuberculosis (TB) and drug- and
multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB), which is also associated with intravenous drug users. The prevalence of
TB in prisons is much higher than among the general population, but "MDR-TB is not only a problem for the
penitentiary system; it is a problem for the whole country and Azerbaijan currently has one of the highest rates of
MDR-TB in the world," said Faiq Agayev, head of the national TB program in Azerbaijan.
The Yeni Azerbaijan ruling party has already begun with the preparations for the 2008 presidential elections, which
sees Aliyev as the only winning candidate. Right now, all dangerous potential rivals have lost their political power
and the most important of them, like Farhad Aliyev, Ali Insanov and Hüsseyn Abdullayev, are imprisoned or have
already lost their reputation and power, while still others are trying to keep their freedom and their capital.
In the months to come, internationally related conflict and cooperation are unlikely to change significantly.
With regard to the Karabakh conflict, the position of Azerbaijan seems stable and will now depend on possible new
alignments after their parliament elections from the Armenian side.