
Latest Articles about Azerbaijan

Fragile Azerbaijani-Armenian Peace Talks Under Pressure From Bellicose Rhetoric
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan held their fourth—although first “formal”—meeting, in Vienna, Austria, on March 29. The statement (Osce.com, March 29) following their talks, which were facilitated by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s (OSCE) Minsk Group, highlighted... MORE

Foreign Policy Context of Azerbaijan’s Major Pardoning Act
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev signed a decree, on March 16, pardoning 51 persons, who were described as “political prisoners” by international organizations and human rights watchdogs. Although pardons in Azerbaijan are not inherently unusual, the numerical scale of the collective pardon in this case was... MORE

Iran and Azerbaijan Proceed With Rapprochement as Diplomatic Exchanges Multiply
Iranian-Azerbaijani relations have been firmly on track toward rapprochement since the election of President Hassan Rouhani in Iran and the subsequent progress on the nuclear deal and lifting of Western sanctions. In the last five years, the presidents of Azerbaijan and Iran met 12 times,... MORE

Moscow Signals a Not-so-Subtle Tilt Toward Baku
Moscow’s recent decision to extradite a Talysh activist to Azerbaijan was a not-so-subtle sign that reinforced previous impressions the Russian government is tilting away from Armenia and toward Azerbaijan in the South Caucasus. The Kremlin is anything but happy with Yerevan’s new government (see EDM,... MORE

Baku and Tbilisi Reassert Their Strategic Partnership After Election of New Georgian President
Newly elected Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili made her first regional visit to the neighboring country of Azerbaijan. Her trip was of critical importance in terms of both bilateral relations and wider geopolitical developments in the South Caucasus. Specifically, Zourabichvili’s arrival in Baku, on February 27,... MORE

Karabakh Peace Talks Break Down as Azerbaijan and Armenia Operate at Cross-Purposes
Late 2018 to early 2019 was marked by a number of positive developments as peace talks intensified between Armenia and Azerbaijan regarding the Karabakh conflict. Last December, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev tweeted that “the year 2019 will give a new impetus” to the conflict settlement... MORE

Can the Kremlin Finally Realize the North-South Transit Corridor?
One of Vladimir Putin’s earliest proposed mega-projects—first announced on September 12, 2000—calls for the creation of a North-South transportation corridor linking Russia with the Caspian littoral states, including Iran, as well as India and Sri Lanka. Such a transit network would permit these countries to... MORE

Turkmenistan Redirects Its Oil Exports From Azerbaijan to Russia
Swiss firm Vitol and Azerbaijan’s state oil company SOCAR have been embroiled in a quarrel over the transportation of crude oil from Turkmenistan. While the respective companies and government officials from Azerbaijan, Russia and Turkmenistan have kept silent on the matter, media outlets tend to... MORE

Resettlement of Lezgins Complicates Azerbaijan’s and Russia’s Relations With Ethnic Minorities
On January 17, 130 families were resettled from the two Lezgin villages of Khrakh-Uba and Uryan-Uba, located on the border between Azerbaijan and Dagestan. The resettlement of ethnic Lezgins had been planned since November 2017, when the Russian authorities issued 138 accommodation certificates, providing 38... MORE

Armenian-Azerbaijani Talks on Karabakh Appear Positive Even as Conflict Continues to Simmer Underneath
The foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan held four-hour-long consultations in Paris, on January 16, under the auspices of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s (OSCE) Minsk Group. The joint statement to come out of the meeting included telling language. In particular, the... MORE