U.S., Azerbaijan are at odds

Opinion: May 12, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

By Shahin Rzaev and Idrak Abassaov

The Institute for War & Peace Reporting

BAKU, Azerbaijan

Government officials are increasingly voicing their displeasure regarding U.S. policies, just at a time when the Obama administration is increasingly looking to cultivate friends in the country that borders both Russia and Iran.

The latest sign of discontent came when a top Azeri official accused the United States of being biased in favor of Armenia in regards to peace negotiations intended to decide the future of Nagorny Karabakh, a region claimed by both countries.

“We are dissatisfied with the actions of the United States,” said Ali Hasanov, head of the presidential administration Socio-Political Department.

“Sadly in this question, some circles in the United States, under the influence of the Armenian lobby, lose their neutrality and openly support Armenia,” he said.

In response, a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Baku released the following statement: “The U.S. Embassy is not ready to comment on specific anti-American statements of officials in Azerbaijan, but the United States as before regards Azerbaijan as a strategic partner.”

But the dispute over Nagorny Karabakh is only one of the issues souring relations between Azerbaijan and the United States.

For example, on March 1, the U.S. State Department released its International Narcotics Control Strategy Report. Because of an error in translation, some local media outlets reported that a third of students in Azerbaijan were addicts, when in fact the report concluded that one-third of addicts in Azerbaijan were students.

Formal protests

Outraged Azeri officials lodged formal protests, while angry students demonstrated in front of the American Embassy.

Four days later, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to recognize the World War I massacres of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey as genocide — an issue of particular sensitivity in this country that, like Turkey, is a predominantly Muslim nation.

According to Rauf Mirqa-dirov, a political commen-tator from the Zerkalo newspaper, bilateral relations had been souring for months before the various scandals, and the decline could be dated back to the five-day war between Russia and Georgia in August 2008.

Rasim Musabaev, an independent political analyst, said, however, that it was wrong to declare Azerbaijan’s ties with the United States ruined.

“Yes, Azerbaijan has not received the expected support from the United States in the resolution of the Karabakh conflict. But Baku has always fulfilled American interests in cooperation in energy security and the coalition against terror, and in other questions. It remains a fact that the United States sees Azerbaijan as a strategic partner,” he said.

Alizade said that Azerbaijan was obliged to follow policies friendly toward Russia.

“First of all, Russia is a key figure in solving the Karabakh conflict, and second, more than 2 million Azeris are working in Russia, and there are many rich Azeri oligarchs in that country,” he said.

He said that Azerbaijan would try to balance its external policies.

“For example, Azerbaijan is refusing to offer its territory to the United States for an attack on Iran. Our energy resources are not only sold to the West but to Russia. Nor do we conceal our desire to sell energy to Iran as well. Of course, the United States does not like this,” he said.

Officially, Baku is hopeful that relations will improve.

Idrak Abbasov and Shahin Rzaev are reporters in Azerbaijan who write for The Institute for War & Peace Reporting, a nonprofit organization that trains journalists in areas of conflict. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services