Azerbaijan: Russian Espionage Case Has Minimal Impact on Baku's Ties with Moscow

An espionage case allegedly involving Russian intelligence has set Baku media outlets a-twitter, but the scandal has not caused any immediate damage to Azerbaijan-Russian relations.

On the surface, at least, the notion of a major Russian espionage ring operating in Azerbaijan is far from shock-inducing. Given Azerbaijan's growing role in supplying oil and gas to outside markets and its strengthening ties with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and Washington, the Kremlin would have to be asleep at the switch not to be curious about the conversations and plans of senior government officials in Baku, experts say.

The trial involves seven individuals, including the former security boss for Baku International Heydar Aliyev Airport, an official from the Ministry of National Security and other airport employees. The accused were arrested between August and September of last year and are charged with working with Russian intelligence, treason, arms possession and sale of weapons, and abuse of official positions. The trial, which began on January 30 in Baku's Severe Military Crimes Court, remains closed to the public.

What little public notice there has been of the case focuses on Emil Suleymanov, the former airport security chief.

The state alleges that Suleymanov, a former KGB officer who studied in Russia and worked as a counter-intelligence official before his airport appointment, provided Russian intelligence with "highly important state information and secrets from Azerbaijan." According to investigators, Suleymanov and other defendants installed special eavesdropping devices at Baku airport that would allow not only the monitoring of conversations within certain sections of the building, but also the tapping of all telephone calls made within the airport's boundaries.

Bugs have reportedly even been found in the airport's special hall, where Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev meets with government officials before official trips.

The trial follows on the heels of the December 2007 sentencing of 15 Azerbaijani citizens for allegedly plotting an Islamic radical-inspired coup with the assistance of Iranian security forces -- a case that sparked a temporary nosedive in relations between the two states.

The nearness in timing of the two cases would suggest that Baku's espionage sensors are now on high alert, yet the expressions of official outrage over the Russian case appear to be chosen carefully. Despite the official accusation that the Suleymanov-led group was working with Moscow, the indictment does not specify the name of the Russian intelligence operative who was presumably interacting with the defendants. Such individuals usually work under diplomatic cover, but so far, no announcement has been made about the expulsion of any Russian diplomat in connection with the case.

It is also unknown which Russian intelligence service -- the Foreign Intelligence Service (known as the SVR, or Sluzhba Vneshnoi Razvedki) or the Chief Intelligence Department of the Defense Ministry -- is suspected of working with the Suleymanov group.

President Aliyev is not known to have officially raised the matter with Russian leader Vladimir Putin at the Commonwealth of Independent States summit in Moscow in late February. For now, the Russian embassy in Baku has declined all comment on the issue. "It is all media reports," embassy Counselor Aleksander Semenov said in reference to the accusation. "The embassy did not receive any official information [on the issue]."

A few days before the closed trial began, some Baku media outlets, primarily pro-opposition in orientation, published stories alleging that the former head of Azerbaijan's diplomatic mission to the United Nations had cooperated with the SVR during his 1993-2001 posting in New York. The articles cited supposed statements by Sergei Tretyakov, a former deputy station chief for the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service in the United States, as the basis for the allegations. The statements appeared in Comrade J, a recently published book about Tretyakov by longtime spy author Pete Earley. That work appears to have been produced with some form of assistance from the Central Intelligence Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The diplomatic mission head himself -- Eldar Guliyev, who was posted at the UN from 1993 to 2001 -- has categorically denied the accusations, terming them "stupid." Speaking from Moscow, where he now works as executive director of the All-Russian-Azerbaijani Congress, a Diaspora organization, Guliyev refused to comment on the issue to the Turan news agency. "If someone wants to make PR, it is his business," he fumed. "But it is wrong to do it by such dirty methods."

Azerbaijan's Foreign Ministry has also tried to distance itself from the scandal. "Since 2001, Eldar Guliyev is not an employee of the diplomatic service of Azerbaijan, therefore, we will not comment on this issue," stated ministry spokesperson Khazar Ibrahim in late January. The ministry has also declined to comment on the Suleymanov case.

The silence on all sides is not necessarily surprising, some local experts say. "[N]either side is interested in tension right now." Kamil Salimov, head of the department of criminology at Baku State University told Day.az in comments posted on February 1.

Vafa Guluzade, a former presidential foreign policy aide to the late President Heydar Aliyev, concurs that he does not expect a strong demarche by either Baku or Moscow on the issue. "The maximum that Baku can do is to announce that the Russian Embassy official who ran the contacts with Emil Suleymanov's group is a persona non grata in Azerbaijan," he said.

In the month since the trial started, however, no Russian diplomat has been declared persona non grata.

One independent analyst in Baku, Ilgar Mammadov, contends that with Russia's presidential election on the horizon, Moscow has more immediate concerns. "Moscow is currently busy with building electoral support for Vladimir Putin's successor, and it does not need a confrontation that may turn into domestic tension with its large Azerbaijani community," Mammadov said. [Ilgar Mammadov is a board member of the Open Society Institute Assistance Foundation -- Azerbaijan.]

"Therefore, Russia's reaction to this spy scandal will be deferred, and will come later at a more convenient moment," Mammadov said.