Ha’aretz, Israel
Dec 13 2014
Baku in the USSR? Azerbaijan could be set to abandon West and head East
The arrest of an Azeri journalist last week is a warning to Israel
that its strategic alliance with the oil-rich state may be on shaky
ground.
By Anshel Pfeffer
Azerbaijan isn’t a friendly country for journalists who ask too many
questions. Dozens have been arrested in recent years, and 20 are
currently in prison. Others have been forced underground or into
exile. Last year, when I visited investigative reporter Khadija
Ismayilova at her Radio Azadliq workplace in Baku, I was surprised to
see how openly the journalist – the biggest thorn in the side of the
regime – operates. “We are part of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty,
which is funded by the U.S. State Department,” one of her colleagues
explained. “It gives Khadija a level of immunity that other
journalists don’t enjoy.”
Ismayilova spoke with anger of how the authorities had hounded her
following a series of investigations revealing how the family of
President Ilham Aliyev had amassed massive wealth through the
embezzlement of Azerbaijan’s oil and natural gas sales.
She was particularly bitter at what she saw as the way Western
governments ignored the human rights situation in her country.
“Aliyev’s police planted hidden cameras in my apartment and filmed me
having sex with my boyfriend. When I didn’t give into their threats,
they posted the video online. We may be a secular society, but this is
still a conservative Muslim country. You can imagine what that did to
my family,” she said.
Ismayilova was arrested last week. She is to be charged with
pressuring her ex-boyfriend and driving him to suicide, and is facing
a seven-year prison term. However, no one is under any illusion that
she is being prosecuted for anything other than her journalism and
politics.
In addition to her investigations, in recent years she has become the
main contact between civil society organizations in Azerbaijan and
human rights groups abroad supporting the pro-democracy movement. It
seems that Ismayilova’s U.S. immunity has run out.
Aliyev is not content with Azerbaijan’s commercial ties with a West
eager for oil and gas – he wants respectability, too. That’s why he’s
spent millions on lobbying and public relations, including sponsorship
of Spanish soccer side Atletico Madrid (last season’s Champions League
finalist). Western leaders are happy to trade with him, but less keen
to be seen with him in public.
Three months ago, President Barack Obama criticized Azerbaijan’s human
rights record in a public speech. Aliyev seems to feel that, after
years courting the West and even entertaining the idea that Azerbaijan
could join the European Union, it’s time to turn back toward Russia
(his father, the previous president, was secretary general of the
Azerbaijani Communist Party until the Soviet Union disintegrated and
the country achieved independence).
Ismayilova’s arrest is seen by many in Baku as a breaking point in
Aliyev’s attempts to align Azerbaijan with the West. In an interview
he gave two weeks ago to a Russian news channel, he accused the West
of having encouraged the emergence of the Islamic State with its
“policies in the Middle East over the last decade.”
His words echoed the Kremlin’s position that the United States and
European Union are responsible for the rise of ISIS (also known as
ISIL) by supporting the rebels fighting the Bashar Assad regime in
Syria.
Until very recently, Azerbaijan saw President Vladimir Putin’s Russia
as a hostile force trying to undermine its pro-Western policy and
supporting neighboring Armenia in the conflict over the
Nagorno-Karabakh enclave. Now, Aliyev is praising Moscow and saying
that “Azerbaijan and Russia are two neighboring friendly countries
which are developing together and are ready to face world challenges.”
Energy field
One country that should be concerned by Azerbaijan’s seeming
disenchantment with the West is Israel, which has built a strategic
alliance in recent years with Aliyev’s regime, few details of which
have been published.
According to foreign reports, Israel has conducted intelligence
operations against Iran from neighboring Azerbaijan, and sold it
weapons systems, including drones and radar. Israel doesn’t disclose
details of its arms deals with Azerbaijan, or if the military and
electronic equipment it supplies is used only for defense purposes
against Iran and Armenian separatists or is used to suppress the
regime’s internal opposition as well.
Another strategic dimension to the Israel-Azerbaijan relationship is
in energy. Most of the oil used in Israel is purchased from
Azerbaijan, pumped to the Turkish port of Ceyhan, and from there in
tankers across the eastern Mediterranean.
The Azerbaijanis have close ties to Turkey and are interested in
building a new pipeline, along with the two countries. However, this
project has yet to materialize due to the prolonged diplomatic crisis
between Jerusalem and Ankara.
Azerbaijan had a long period of tension with its Iranian neighbor,
despite the fact that millions of Azeris live in Iran (even Iran’s
supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, is half-Azeri).
There is an intense rivalry between the Islamic Republic and the
former Soviet Republic, and competition for oil markets. In recent
years, both countries have accused each other of aggression.
Azerbaijan claimed that Iranian cells were planning to carry out
terror attacks against Israeli targets in its territory. And last
August, Iran claimed to have shot down an Israeli drone launched in
Azerbaijan (though the footage the Iranians showed was old and filmed
in Lebanon).
A low point in the relationship was in 2012, when Azerbaijan hosted
the Eurovision Song Contest in Baku and Iran accused it of holding an
“immoral” and “unIslamic” event, even recalling its ambassador for a
few months. (Ironically, Azerbaijan had won the 2011 event with a song
called “Running Scared.”)
Recently though, there’s been a thaw between the two countries.
Iranian President Hassan Rohani visited Baku last month, and has now
met Aliyev four times this year. The assumption in Jerusalem is that
the rivalry between the two countries isn’t over and the Azerbaijanis
will still prefer the strategic alliance with Israel.
Ismayilova, a staunch atheist, believes – like many Azerbaijanis –
that Iran is financing and supporting Islamists in her country. In her
interview with Haaretz last year, she warned the West and Israel from
relying on the Aliyev regime to maintain a secular Azerbaijan and
block the Islamists. “Don’t think you’re more clever than the
Iranians. In the end, we will also have Iran here and everyone will
lose.”
http://www.haaretz.com/news/world/.premium-1.631459