Azerbaijan: Going Sour on Moscow?

Azerbaijani trust in Russia as an unbiased mediator for the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is melting away amid lingering outrage over a suspected arms transfer to Armenia, and growing interest in the Western-backed Nabucco gas pipeline project. But with an eye to Russia's regional weight, Baku is avoiding outright challenges to Moscow.

The scandal surrounding an alleged Russian transfer of tanks, armored combat vehicles, artillery and other materiel to Armenia drives Baku's concerns about Moscow's reliability as a co-chair of the Minsk Group, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. The Minsk group is the body that oversees the Karabakh peace process. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

"Russia would seriously undermine its image as an unbiased mediator" if allegations about the arms transfer are accurate, said Novruz Mammadov, head of the administration's international affairs department, Turan news agency reported. "[S[uch actions do not correspond with Russia's Minsk Group co-chair status."

Debate about the arms scandal is expected during the current session of Azerbaijan's parliament. In petitioning for such a discussion, 15 pro-government members of parliament also noted that the alleged transfer raises "doubts about Russia's sincerity and its impartiality as a Minsk Group co-chair."

A spokesperson for the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry stressed to EurasiaNet that the government plans to "keep the issue in its focus." Nonetheless, the government has refrained from publicly questioning Russia's role in the Minsk Group. "It would be impossible while everyone understands how important Russia's role in the Karabakh peace process is," commented political analyst Hikmet Hajizade.

Azerbaijani officials likewise avoided creating any public scandals at the January Minsk Group meetings, which took place weeks after the arms scandal story broke. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan instructed their foreign ministers to continue negotiations, in cooperation with Minsk Group co-chairs Russia, France and the United States.

But memories die hard inside Azerbaijan's Foreign Ministry. "The fact that there was a gratuitous, $1 billion arms transfer by Russia to Armenia in 1996 is forcing us to do it," spokesperson Khazar Ibrahim commented in reference to the ministry's ongoing attention to the arms transfer allegations. (The Russian government denied making the 1996 transfer, just as it has rejected the recent allegations).

Azerbaijani Defense Minister Safar Abiyev reportedly discussed the alleged transfer with his Russian counterpart, Anatoly Serdukov, during a visit to Moscow in late January, but the Defense Ministry has not released any details.

The criticism of Moscow contrasts sharply with Baku's behavior following Russia's August 2008 war with Georgia, when Azerbaijan pointedly avoided offending the Kremlin. After the November signing of the Moscow Declaration, a document that binds Azerbaijan to the non-use of force in resolving the Karabakh conflict, an "atmosphere of trust" in Russia was said to prevail within the government. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

The current changes in position take place against the backdrop of increased Azerbaijani support for a project that poses another challenge to Moscow -- Nabucco, a heavily Western-promoted pipeline that would offer an alternative delivery route to Europe for Caspian Sea gas supplies. [For details, see the Eurasia Insight archive]. The project is believed to have been addressed during a February 13 visit to Baku by the Czech Republic's prime minister, Mirek Topolánek, to discuss energy cooperation. Topolánek is currently serving as the president of the European Union Council.

While the head of the Russian parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee has stated that Moscow does not oppose the Nabucco project, one January 30 comment published in Kommersant-Vlast predicted that Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin might consider war between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh as a way "to prevent strong competitors from emerging in the European market" for gas.

Russian nationalist Alexander Dugin, thought to be close to the Kremlin, has asserted that "Nabucco has to be wrecked at any cost because we are talking about gas geopolitics."

"If we need to initiate new military conflict for this purpose, we should do it without hesitation," he told Russian journalists on January 31, RIA-Novosti news agency reported.

The Kremlin has not commented on these allegations, although Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin in a January 28 interview with the television channel Euronews stated that Russia does not believe Nabucco is viable.

Nothing, however, indicates that the Azerbaijani government is concerned about a Russian military tactic to scuttle Nabucco. Meanwhile, it continues to play its energy cards carefully. Even as President Aliyev actively promotes Nabucco, the State Oil Company of the Azerbaijani Republic (SOCAR) is continuing to talk with Gazprom about the possible sale of all gas from the Shah Deniz field to the Russian energy giant. SOCAR and BP-Azerbaijan recently inspected a pipeline near the Russian border "to define the prospects of exporting gas from Shah Deniz through the pipeline," the Ekspress newspaper reported on February 10.

Baku-based energy expert Ilham Shaban, however, noted that while SOCAR has small amounts of its own gas to sell Russia for use in neighboring Dagestan, the government wants to sell the big-ticket item -- Shah Deniz gas -- "to Europe via Nabucco and the Interconnector (Turkey-Greece-Italy) pipelines."

The ongoing talks with Russia about gas sales are just part of Baku's constant balancing act, agreed Elhan Shahinoglu, an expert at the Atlas research center. "Baku has limited capacity to be anti-Russian because this country [Russia] still, in fact, controls the Karabakh peace process, while the European energy plans remains quite unclear," Shahinoglu said. "Therefore, the government has to keep playing with Russia."