Following Ukraine’s Orange Revolution in 2004, political analysts predicted that the Kremlin would step up its efforts to conquer the hearts and minds of people living in the post-Soviet region. This “soft diplomacy” has long been a powerful tool for Western democracies, and it is... MORE

On the first week of the new year, residents of Azerbaijan were shocked to discover that the popular weekly TV program “Chto? Gde? Kogda?” (What? Where? When?) was missing from TV schedules. The National Council for Television and Radio Broadcasting had finally realized its long-planned... MORE

The new proposal from the OSCE’s Minsk group, put forward to the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan at last week’s OSCE summit in Madrid, needs to be studied in more detail by expert groups, according to Azerbaijan’s Deputy Foreign Minister Araz Azimov (ANS TV,... MORE

On October 27 Azerbaijani law-enforcement agencies announced they had foiled a terrorist plot targeting the U.S. and British embassies, as well as the Baku offices of several major oil companies. The plot was discovered following a theft in a Defense Ministry military unit. Lieutenant Kamran... MORE

As Azerbaijan’s ruling Yeni Azerbaijan party celebrates the fourth anniversary of Ilham Aliyev’s presidency, political parties and groupings in the country are already looking ahead to the 2008 presidential election. On September 19, leaders of Musavat, one of the main opposition parties in the country,... MORE

At their summit in Tehran (see EDM, October 17), the presidents of the five Caspian countries’ agreed tentatively and in general terms to create an institutional framework for regional cooperation on economic, legal, and some security issues. The presidents, who had not met since 2002... MORE

On September 4 Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev stated that the national budget of the country in 2008 would reach $12 billion (Day.az, September 4). Just three years ago, the budget totaled only $4 billion. Aliyev’s announcement was no surprise to the domestic audience, since the... MORE

Baku hosted the world wrestling championship September 17-23, reopening the long-standing dispute between Azerbaijan and Armenia regarding the status of Karabakh. According to the rules of the tournament, all sportsmen from other countries, including Armenia, were to be provided with security and other arrangements for... MORE

Different groups in Azerbaijan are clamoring for their share of the massive flow of oil revenue generated by the completion of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline. Lobbying from the ministries for additional financial resources to complete new, massive projects is leading to a new era in Azerbaijani... MORE

Russia’s ORT television, the successor to the first TV station in the Soviet Union, was officially closed in Azerbaijan as of July 11. The decision came as a result of failed negotiations between the governments of Russia and Azerbaijan to continue broadcasting the channel in... MORE