Azerbaijan and Russia getting closer? - COMMENT

By Kamal Ali

Azerbaijan’s First Deputy Prime Minister Yaqub Eyyubov, commenting on Western sanctions to inflict a cost on Russia for its annexation of Crimea and invasion of southeastern Ukraine, has said Russia “isn’t the kind of country one can speak to in the language of sanctions”. 

Eyyubov said the sanctions will do no harm to Russia and strengthen its resolve instead. 

“No one can break Russia,” Eyyubov said at a meeting of the Russian-Azerbaijani intergovernmental meeting in Baku. “Russia will never bow to pressure.”

This unusually open support of Russia in its standoff with the West by a senior Azerbaijani official took many in Baku by surprise.   

Azerbaijani officials never publicly criticized Russia for its role in the Ukrainian crisis but also refrained from openly supporting it. Baku has pursued a balanced policy on the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. It didn’t support the Russian aggression against Ukraine and recognized Petro Poroshenko as Ukraine’s president. 

But then comes this statement by Yaqub Eyyubov.

The Azerbaijani-Russian intergovernmental commission met in Baku on September 15 for the first time in three years. Azerbaijan obviously seeks to increase food exports to Russia to make up for European foods banned by the Kremlin in retaliation to Western sanctions. The intergovernmental commission agreed to open an Azerbaijani exhibition and trade center in Moscow. There were also agreements on the storage and processing of Azerbaijani agricultural products in Moscow.

The Russian delegation was represented in the meeting by Dmitriy Rogozin, deputy chairman of the Russian government. Political analysts in Azerbaijan view Rogozin as a Russian hawk who speaks for Russian ultra-nationalists in a way similar to Vladimir Zhirinovskiy. Unlike Zhirinovskiy, though, he chooses his words and is not as harsh.   

His excellency Zhirinovskiy himself will visit Baku at the end of September. He will also travel to Azerbaijan’s regions.  

As an Azerbaijani journalist correctly put it, only Armenian nationalist writer Zoriy Balayan is lacking in this campaign… 

What is going on? 

“Azerbaijan is seeking Russian approval for another escalation of tensions on the frontline. The escalation in August, which took the lives of many servicemen, had been sanctioned by Moscow,” said Hakop Badalyan in an article on Lragir.am, headlined “Preparations under way for new strike against Armenia”.

As the Russian saying goes, “Fear has big eyes”. Any move to bring Azerbaijani-Russian relations closer is a cause for concern in Armenia, which is frightened by the prospect of Russia deploying its troops in Nagorno-Karabakh. 

Maybe Badalyan is right. But I do not agree with him given previous experiences of panic. They led to nothing. 

Officials in Baku are talking about the expansion of Azerbaijani-Russian ties, without mentioning Karabakh. This sounds more convincing to me.

Bakudaily.Az