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By Gorkhmaz Asgarov

For a long time, the Azerbaijani government prized its policy of maintaining balance between Russia and the West. When Russia invaded Georgia, which was left largely unprotected by the West, this policy of balance was widely praised by the pro-government politicians and political commentators in Azerbaijan in countless articles published in state-owned media outlets.

One such commentary was written by Anar Mamedkhanov, a member of the Azeri parliament, considered to be close to President Ilham Aliyev. In his article "The Azeri Way" (www.day.az October 2, 2008) Anar Mamedkhanov argued that it was a wise policy for Azerbaijan not to rush into NATO or other Western structures. He brought the example of devastated Georgia as a warning to the proponents of the Westernization. That same author recently penned another article on January 15, 2009. The title of the article "Unexplainable Caddishness of Kremlin" tells volumes about the anger and the frustration of the author. Just several months after the previous article, Anar Mamedkhanov now argues that Russia has always been inclined towards supporting hostile actions of Armenia against Azerbaijan, and no degree of appeasement or compromises seemed to satiate Moscow.

What changed the position of the author from a proponent of the level-headed approach towards Russia into a radical anti-Russian was the breaking news about the Russian transfer of arms to Armenia worth 800 million USD. The alarming news about the arms transfer from the Russian military base in Gumri to the Armenian military appeared in the Azeri media, backed up by credible Russian sources. Despite the fact that both Armenia and Russia denied that such a transfer took place between those countries, the Azeri foreign ministry issued a statement expressing its dissatisfaction with the clarifications of the Russian foreign ministry.

The Russians’ giving weapons to Armenia is nothing new. The news about the first such arms transfer initially surfaced in 1996, when Russia reportedly gave weapons worth one billion USD to Armenia. Russia, at first denied the fact, but had to acknowledge it at the end. What comes as an unpleasant surprise to the Azeri government is that anti-Azerbaijan policies of Russia continue apace even when Azerbaijan makes or has made substantial moves to cosy up to the Kremlin.

The architects of the pro-Russian policies in Azerbaijan argue that the "ungrateful" West continued pushing Azerbaijan toward unwanted political reforms and kept criticizing the country through the reports and statements of such Western institutions like Council of Europe, European Union, through the reports of Western NGOs like the Freedom House, Human Rights Watch, through the annual reports of the US State Department. Once lashing out against the West, President Ilham Aliyev said: "There are sides which try to force Azerbaijan into concessions by various means and certain mechanisms of pressure are put to use to achieve that goal. In some of these mechanisms a certain role is played by the arguments that allegedly there are certain problems with democracy in Azerbaijan” (www.day.az May 28, 2008). Even as recently as January 16, 2009 president Ilham Aliyev exhibited belligerence: "Azerbaijan is an independent country, it will pursue independent policy and will not tolerate interference into its internal affairs" (Turan IA, January 17, 2009).

his giant official propaganda display with a picture of Heydar Aliyev, followed by his son Ilham and grandson Heydar-junior reads "The past, the present and the future of Azerbaijan!"

Generally speaking, Azerbaijani government's problem with the West is that the former does not want to reform and adjust its political system to meet the Western standards. Azerbaijan is a country where local authorities can jail prominent journalists on petty hooliganism and drug charges. This is a country where a whole family (in Nakhchivan) is kidnapped by authorities over a Christmas Tree illumination and terrorized (the head of the family thrown into asylum house, the rest of the family members lost for several days, while the media was looking for them and sending inquiries to the Ministry of Interior, which in its turn remained unresponsive). This is a country where families point at police officers as suspects for kidnapping their children for human trafficking purposes (www.day.az December 3, 2008) and when human rights activist Leyla Yunus spoke out about this outrage she was sued by the Police Minister Ramil Usubov, who believes that despite numerous international reports confirming tortures and other crimes carried out by the police, it is criminally punishable to suggest that the Azeri police might be involved in anything illegal.

The Azeri government thinks that the country described above needs no fundamental changes. And indeed, there would be no such problems with Russia. However, there are other sets of problems with Russia. Russia has historically been regarding Azerbaijan as an agent of Turkish interests in the Caucasus and has subsequently been trying to diminish its military and political importance in the region. What makes Armenia an attractive ally for Russia is that this country has a long history of confrontation with Turkey, Russia’s archnemesis. Another problem is that Russia regards all the former Soviet republics as its own territories and the idea of establishing horizontal partnership relations with those republics is alien to Russian policy-makers. Russia would accept Azerbaijan, the same way it accepts Turkmenistan or Uzbekistan. However, if Azerbaijan was to go all the way to becoming just another Turkmenistan, Russia would demand full submission not only in foreign policy orientation, but also in energy projects and economic policies.

When the Azeri government in 1993 sought Russian alliance, Heydar Aliyev, then the president of the country stumbled upon one single issue - bringing Russian peacekeepers into the conflict area in Nagorno Karabakh and agreeing to host permanent Russian military basis in the country. Heydar Aliyev saw grave dangers in that for the independence of Azerbaijan, and more importantly, for his own power. That was back in 1993, when Azerbaijan did not yet have any oil contracts with Western companies, when Azerbaijan did not have either Baku-Supsa, or Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline acting as an energy route alternative to the Russian supplies of energy and the Azeri government was dealing with Russia under a more liberal president Boris Yeltsin. Will Medvedev's/Putin's Russia accept Azerbaijan under the conditions, which the Yeltsin administration had rejected in 1993? Will the current Azeri government be willing to go to the compromises, which Heydar Aliyev refused to go in 1993? These questions need to be clearly answered before the Azeri government opts for the change of its foreign policy orientation towards Russia.

It would be safe to assume that the Russian arms transfer controversy, to a certain degree, served as a wake-up call for the Azeri government. Now that the Azeri government saw the taste of what the Russian way might result in, it might have a better appreciation for its relations with the West. The Azeri government's somehow softened approach on the issue of foreign broadcasters, its offering the medium frequencies (AM waves) to the radio stations RFE/RL, VOA and BBC can be viewed in this new context. It looks like the Azeri government is wiling to consider certain minor concessions and of course keep its face, while avoiding the deterioration of its relations with the West, especially the United States.

How Does the West Handle Azerbaijan?

It looks like the soft, diplomatic and politically correct statements of the United States expressing "concerns" or even "deep concerns" about the suppression of political freedoms in Azerbaijan is not understood well by the Azeri government officials. Many of the current influential policy-makers in Azerbaijan are the former Communist Party officials. It is difficult to convince Ramiz Mehdiyev, the former head of the ideology department of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan and the current head of the presidential administration, in unacceptability of kicking out the American radio stations out of Azerbaijan, using a soft language. This is not how Moscow used to talk to them back in the Soviet times and this is not how the current Russian government speaks to them. From the behavior of the Azeri government, one can see that the Azeri government is always very careful not to provoke Russia. They are afraid for the repercussions of their actions. When dealing with the West, Azerbaijan initially felt the same restraints, at least during the most period of Heydar Aliyev's rule. However, as the time passes, the Azeri government feels more and more unrestrained in its actions against its Western partners. The West, where much of the legally and illegally earned money of Azerbaijan is being kept, which is the only hope of defense for the energy projects of Azerbaijan, has many leverages over Azerbaijan. However, it looks like the Western politicians and diplomats fail to convey this message effectively to the Azeri government. When dealing with any kind of authoritarian regime, especially the newly independent ones, which do not yet have the knowledge of the acceptable boundaries of their foreign and domestic policy behavior, it is imperative to utilize certain measure of boldness and even threat. Who could be intimidated by an always smiling and charming Matthew Bryza, who among other things has been handling the issue of foreign broadcasters with the Azeri government? Or how seriously does the patriarchal Azeri government take the statements of warnings issued by the US embassy in Azerbaijan, headed by ambassador Anne Derse? It is not about questioning the professional qualities of the esteemed diplomats of the United States with excellent service record. When dealing with countries such as Azerbaijan, it is highly important to heed the style of the message as well as its content. For instance, President Ilham Aliyev's statement that Azerbaijan will not tolerate interference into its internal affairs came up two days before the visit of Matthew Bryza, the Minsk Group co-chairman from the US, who was also expected to negotiate the status of the RFE and VOA with the Azeri government. Here is the statement by Matthew Bryza released to the press after the meeting with the Azeri government officials about the status of the foreign broadcasters: "It seemed to me it will be possible to settle this problem" (Turan, January 19, 2009). And here is the statement of Ali Hasanov, the chief of the public political department of the presidential administration after the visit of Matthew Bryza: "One explanation to this issue is that these radio stations are the remnants of the Cold War. In civilized countries they don't broadcast, and if they do, they do it with a special status. Of course, if these radio stations want to broadcast in Azerbaijan, let them do that and we shall create conditions for them in accordance with our legislation. But let them do that as they do it in other countries. ...We are not going to create any special conditions for them" (www. day.az January 19, 2009). And this is happening after the Azeri government itself signaled its readiness to continue the dialogue with the Western governments over the issue of foreign broadcasting. It looks like even under the advantageous circumstances the Western negotiation positions lack teeth when dealing with Azerbaijan.

Another problem is the current face of the Azeri government. Despite the initial expectations that a number of well-educated liberal politicians around Ilham Aliyev will form his new team and will lead a more pro-reform political course, the Azeri president still heavily relies on the old guard left to him from his father. Ramiz Mehdiyev, the former senior communist official heads the presidential administration, his protege Ali Hasanov head the public political department, dealing with media and political parties, a politically insignificant, but nonetheless publicly annoying Nushirvan Maharramli heads the National Radio and Television Council (NRTC), Nakhchivan, an important exclave of Azerbaijan is headed by Vasif Talibov, who gives Turkmenbashi style orders on how should people conduct their wedding or funeral ceremonies, on whether the people living under his rule should have satellite dishes or not, who uses asylum houses as pseudo-jails in neutralizing the unwanted dissidents and who, of course, harasses and at times arrests the local journalist of RFE in Nakhchivan. For his deeds, Vasif Talibov is called "Vasif khan" by the local population.

Any kind of policies be it pro-Russian, or pro-Western, are being carried out by concrete people. Their world outlook inevitably influence their political decisions. It is difficult to imagine any major breakthrough in the relations of Azerbaijan with the West, unless the above mentioned people are removed from office. The seriousness of the intentions of Ilham Aliyev in improving the relations with the West can only be measured by the privileges accorded to such individuals in his government. The question is, does Ilham Aliyev have either the will or desire to take that step?

For years the Azeri government has moved inch by inch toward squeezing the political freedoms and free speech out of the country and before considering stretching a hand to the Aliyev government to face the Russian threat, the West should make sure that the Azeri government at least returns to the status quo of the beginning of his rule in Azerbaijan. That means freeing the journalists arrested on fabricated charges and restoring the broadcast of the Western radio stations at FM frequencies – without conditions. At least several of those steps do not erode in any way the Aliyevs' grip on power in Azerbaijan and coming at no cost to the regime they would merely signal the existence of good will on the part of the Azeri government. It is ridiculous to consider those issues as major concessions by the Azeri government. The real discussions, if Azerbaijan ever intends to integrate itself into the family of European nations, should revolve around one big issue - the start of genuine democratic reforms by the Azeri government on a broad spectrum of fields, including the issue of addressing the recently initiated constitutional changes.