The Senate confirmation process for the Obama administration’s nominee as US envoy to Azerbaijan appears stuck in neutral. Experts believe that the confirmation has become entangled in partisan politics.
Soccer in Azerbaijan has caught the fancy of some of the country’s leading corporations, which are spending tens of millions of dollars to upgrade facilities and sign high-profile coaches and players from around the world.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s September 2-3 visit to Azerbaijan yielded a big energy deal, as the Russian state-controlled conglomerate Gazprom secured an agreement to dramatically increase its purchases of Azerbaijani natural gas.
Turkish President Abdullah Gul ended a two-day official visit to Baku on August 17 with the signing of a strategic partnership agreement, but the details remain a guessing game. Local analysts say that they are left to conclude that the trip, coming a few days before Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s visit to Armenia, was meant mostly for consultations.
Russia’s reported plans to sell two of its S-300 Favorit air-defense systems to Azerbaijan are seen as a done deal in Baku, where analysts argue that the systems could be put to good use protecting the country’s extensive energy extraction projects and pipeline networks.
Longtime Azerbaijani ally Turkey appears to be taking on a larger role in supporting the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic, an Azerbaijani exclave sandwiched between Armenia and Iran. The first steps in this intensified cooperation are taking shape just months after plans for rapprochement between Turkey and Armenia went into cold storage.
US support for Azerbaijan in its Nagorno-Karabakh negotiations with Armenia will most likely prove the price for any agreements on other issues made during US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s July 4 visit to Baku, local analysts say.
With ongoing instability in Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan’s role as a logistics point for US and NATO operations in Afghanistan could take on heightened importance, military and political experts in Baku believe.
A $203 million commercial satellite project could make energy-rich Azerbaijan the first South Caucasus country to venture into outer space, but some critics ask whether financial problems will interfere with the satellite’s launch and operation.
Natural gas sales and transit agreements signed by Turkey and Azerbaijan on June 7 appear to give a long-awaited green light for Azerbaijani gas sales to Europe-bound pipeline projects. While energy executives have welcomed the news, a source at Azerbaijan’s state energy company SOCAR tells EurasiaNet.org that the two sides failed to reach a comprehensive gas agreement.
