CHANGES IN AZERBAIJAN’S INTERNAL AND FOREIGN POLICY IRRITATE RUSSIA
FRAGILE RELATIONS
Azerbaijan-Russia relations have always been fragile and unstable. Out of the former Soviet republics, Azerbaijan conducted a foreign policy that was less dependent on Moscow. In the 1990s, its policy was to develop energy resources and infrastructure in the Caspian and to get rid of Russian military bases. There has always been a security threat to Baku from its northern neighbour due to Azerbaijan’s major role in transporting Caspian energy to Western markets, breaking Russia’s monopoly on energy pipelines to Europe. In addition, since Moscow considers the South Caucasus region as its underbelly, it has always opposed the possible presence of foreign military bases in the Caspian region, particularly Azerbaijan. Nevertheless Azerbaijan’s government took account of Russia’s interests and did not move against them openly over foreign bases, which the country’s former president Heydar Aliyev branded a “balanced foreign policy”.
However, Baku has always accused Russia of being the third party in Armenia’s occupation of Azerbaijan’s Karabakh region. Most experts in Azerbaijan argue that Moscow is the major reason why the conflict is still ongoing. In fact, Russia is the major arms supplier to Armenia and its protector, as it has got the only military base in the South Caucasus in Gyumri, Armenia. The unresolved conflict gives Russia a great opportunity to monopolise its influence in Armenia and prevent Azerbaijan from conducting a more open independent foreign policy. In order to keep the conflict unresolved the Kremlin and Russia’s military leadership provide Armenia with arms, in many cases for free, within their alliance, the Collective Security Treaty Organisation. Considering the fact that Armenia’s state budget is unable to compete with Azerbaijan’s rich oil and gas resources, it is not difficult to see how the balance of forces between the conflicting sides has been facilitated for many years by a third party.
TURNING POINT: ERA OF BALANCED FOREIGN POLICY IS OVER
With the unexpected border skirmishes in the Tovuz section of the state border between Armenia and Azerbaijan on 12th July this year, Russia-Azerbaijan relations started changing. Azerbaijan’s vital energy projects and railway connections pass through the Tovuz region, so the location of the border clashes is strategic for the country’s income as well as its only route to the West. Interestingly, the skirmishes occurred not in Karabakh, the actual conflict zone, but in a section that made Azerbaijan’s leaders and political experts assume that this was an attack initiated beyond Armenia. Baku’s latest energy project — the TANAP and TAP pipeline corridor which will carry gas from Azerbaijan via Turkey and the Balkans to Italy — will soon be completed. The corridor presents a major threat to Russia’s natural gas monopoly in Europe. Already, Azerbaijani gas has broken Gazprom’s monopoly in Turkey, and the TANAP-TAP project will be a major competitor for Gazprom in Europe. The political will both in Turkey and the European Union is to lessen their dependence on Russian gas and to diversify their supplies in order to prevent Russia from using its energy monopoly as a weapon. In June, the Russian website Vzglyad.ru published an article entitled Azerbaijani Gas Threatens Russia in Europe, referring to TANAP and TAP as possible risks for Moscow. The Tovuz border clashes could have disrupted and even closed the Southern Energy Corridor that includes TANAP and TAP.
President Aliyev’s dismissal of Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov during the clashes and the high level bilateral visits between Turkey and Azerbaijan (Azerbaijan’s newly appointed Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov made his first foreign visit to Ankara) are signs that the old balanced foreign policy is over and that Azerbaijan’s new foreign policy will have closer relations with Turkey and Israel which are Baku’s major partners. Turkey openly supported Azerbaijan and Turkish President Erdogan even indirectly made a statement that these attacks “went beyond” Armenia, meaning Russia. Amidst the clashes Russia’s arms supplies to Armenia via air over the Caspian caused outrage in Baku. President Ilham Aliyev raised the issue in a phone call to Putin. Very soon afterwards Azerbaijan and Turkey held military drills in response to Russia-Armenia exercises.
President Aliyev has initiated gradual political change inside Azerbaijan, having started the process of cleaning the state apparatus of the old guard, known as the Nakhchivan clan. Ramiz Mehdiyev, the former chief of the Presidential Administration, who was considered by many to be the de facto ruler of Azerbaijan, was also Russia’s top man inside the country. Ramiz Mehdiyev was responsible for protecting and conducting the Kremlin’s policies inside Azerbaijan. He has been dubbed the Grey Cardinal for years and more recently the leader of the fifth column in Azerbaijan. Azerbaijani political experts claim that Mehdiyev was the man behind repression of free-thinking journalists, political experts and NGO’s. He has been accused of having links with the radical opposition group, whose sources of funding are unknown. Now that Ramiz Mehdiyev and his Nakhchivan clan, and the Yeraz clan of former minister Ali Insanov, are losing some of their positions and influence, it is clear that these regional and tribal groups, backed by Russia, are trying to keep Azerbaijan under Russia’s influence at all costs.
