Paul Goble is director of publications at the
Authors articles:
Armenian Diaspora Increasingly Hurting Armenia
Azerbaijanis have always paid a great deal of attention to the Armenian diaspora, viewing it as an influential force that Yerevan can and does deploy against Baku. However, two recent commentaries suggest not only that there is now “a split” between the diaspora and Armenia, but that the diaspora’s obsession with the past, the basis for its own definition and survival, may in fact be depriving Armenia itself of a better future...
Azerbaijan’s Foreign Policy in 2012: Ten Issues to Watch
Having just completed its most successful year in foreign affairs since the restoration of independence, Azerbaijan enters 2012 with many new opportunities and the challenges that come with them. No one can say exactly what the next twelve months will bring, especially in the area of foreign affairs, but...
Yerevan Again Ready to Play ‘Talysh Card’
Recent statements by Armenian politicians about the possibility of using violence to “liberate” Armenian-populated districts in southern Georgia have attracted international attention, but Yerevan’s willingness to again try to play “the Talysh card” against Azerbaijan may be even more significant not only because it could presage revived interest in Talysh autonomy or more ominously new terrorist acts in Azerbaijan, but...
Azerbaijan’s National Idea Has Moved Beyond the Ethnic, Presidential Advisor Says
The Azerbaijani nation—defined almost exclusively in religious terms in the nineteenth century, in restricted linguistic terms in Soviet times, and in exclusively Turkic terms in the late 1980s and early 1990s—has become a civic nation in which all citizens of Azerbaijan, regardless of religion, ethnicity or historical background, share a common identity...
Call to Resettle Armenians in Karabakh Threatens Peace Process
An Armenian diaspora effort to convince Armenians living abroad to resettle in the Nagorno-Karabakh not only violates international law, but threatens progress under the aegis of the OSCE Minsk Group to a resolution of the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan...
‘No Obstacles Remain’ To Flow of Azerbaijani Gas to Europe
Seventeen years ago, Azerbaijan signed an agreement with the Western major oil companies allowing its oil to flow to the West, a deal that has been celebrated as “the deal of the century” both in Baku and the West. On October 25, however, President Ilham Aliyev and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan signed an accord in Izmir...
Moscow Seeks Baku’s Help In Developing The North Caucasus
The visit of Aleksandr Khloponin, Russian vice prime minister and the plenipotentiary representative of the Russian president in the North Caucasus Federal District, accompanied by the leaders of seven republics in that region to Baku at the beginning of October, “opens a new and extremely promising page” in the relationship between Azerbaijan and the North Caucasus and, what may be even more important, between Baku and Moscow...
Water as a Foreign Policy Challenge for Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan does not face the kind of potable water crisis that confronts many of the countries of Central Asia, but each of the three water problems it does have to deal with have a foreign policy dimension...
Destruction of Caucasian Albanian Sites Continues in the Occupied Territories
President Serzh Sargsyan’s recent remarks about “Greater Armenia” have attracted widespread attention and much criticism, but an ongoing Armenian effort to lay claim to a community which formed part of the ethnogenesis of the Azerbaijani nation has not, even though its immediate consequences—the destruction, desecration or restoration of Caucasian Albanian historical monuments in the occupied territories—may be far more serious as an example of cultural imperialism and ethnocide...
Gorbachev ‘Made A Mistake’ on Karabakh, Russian Ambassador to Baku Says
Vladimir Dorokhin, the Russian ambassador to Baku, told a group in the Azerbaijani capital at the end of July that former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev had “made a mistake on the Karabakh question” and, moreover, that “Azerbaijan deserves to know more about this.” As is often the case when a diplomat makes a statement about the past, Dorokhin’s remarks on this point are important not only and perhaps not so much as a contribution to historical understanding, but...
Azerbaijan Grapples with Visa Issues
As is the case for most countries, visa issues present a series of complex challenges for Azerbaijan. On the one hand, Azerbaijan is naturally and vitally interested in asserting its sovereignty and exercising control over those who apply to visit it...
Demographic Trends Shift in Azerbaijan’s Favor
Two reports this month—one showing that more Azerbaijanis are moving to Azerbaijan than leaving it as was the case in the 1990s and a second highlighting the demographic collapse of Armenia—call attention to the fact that demographic trends in the South Caucasus are increasingly shifting in Azerbaijan’s favor, a pattern certain to affect both the domestic politics and the international relations of all the countries there in the years ahead...
Karabakh after Kazan
No meeting of Azerbaijani and Armenian leaders in the past decade generated such widespread expectations that there would be a breakthrough toward a settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict...
Azerbaijan Has Realized Its National Idea
In the June 9 Bakinsky Rabochiy, Ramiz Mehdiyev, the head of the Presidential Administration, argues that contemporary Azerbaijan reflects the successful realization of the country’s national idea, an achievement that sets it apart not only from other post-Soviet states, but also from many other countries around the world...
Azerbaijan Joins the Non-Aligned Movement
At the 16th ministerial of the Non-Aligned Movement in Bali, Azerbaijan formally joined that group, a step that many commentators have viewed as the latest manifestation of the balanced foreign policy that President Ilham Aliyev has pursued since coming to office but one that others see as reflecting a new direction in Baku’s foreign policy...
Azerbaijani Eurovision Victory Puts Baku in a New League
The victory in this year’s Eurovision song competition by two Azerbaijani singers and the award of next year’s competition to Baku puts Azerbaijan in a new league, one that is attracting more attention to the country...
Progress Toward the Delimitation of the Caspian Sea
At the end of April, significant progress was made toward the resolution of one of the trickiest diplomatic problems created by the demise of the Soviet Union: the delimitation of the Caspian Sea among the five states now surrounding it in place of the two that had been there prior to 1991...
Baku Hosts ‘Cultural Davos’
Azerbaijan, whose leaders and people have long been proud of its reputation as an example of ethnic and religious tolerance, organized a three-day World Forum on International Dialogue in Baku so that to use that reputation in order to help build bridges across the ethnic and religious divisions of the world and thereby to advance itself as an international leader in this often-neglected sector of international relations...
Baku Muslim Leader’s Influence Extends Far beyond Azerbaijan
In the years since the USSR disintegrated, most but not all faiths have sought to bring their administrative responsibilities in line with the newly established international borders. Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church is an obvious and well-known exception...
Training Abroad As a Key Element in Azerbaijani State Policy
Azerbaijan, like other former Soviet republics, has found it far easier to create new institutions for the future than to reform those inherited from the communist past. Nowhere has this pattern been more obvious and the stakes greater than in the case of higher education...
