Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev repeatedly states: “I don’t care who says what about my country, I will continue doing whatever I want.” However, this is a cover up. Regardless of his public tough talk, Azerbaijan is working behind the scenes to manage its conflicts with other countries.
Last week, I wrote that Azerbaijan asked the Israeli government to intercede with France to improve their relations, which have deteriorated in recent years due to the French support of Armenia in the Artsakh conflict. Since Israel turned down Aliyev’s request to mediate with France, Azerbaijan started looking for other channels to resolve its problems with Europe.
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We thought that Putin cared about his and Russia’s image, until he occupied and annexed Crimea and later invaded Ukraine. Obviously he doesn’t. Aliyev may care about his and Azerbaijan’s image. He also may or may not, if he and Azerbaijan are finally and thoroughly sanctioned. Dictators like Putin, Aliyev or Erdogan, will always test and push the limits of the “international community”. With Putin, the final straw was the invasion of Ukraine. What will the final straw with Aliyev be, as well as with his fellow dictator Erdogan of Turkey, who collude together against Armenia? Since Azerbaijan and Turkey neither have the military knowhow, the vast mineral and hydrocarbon reserves and the huge “rainy day” savings of Russia, to keep them going if they were sanctioned, they would have economically collapsed and their dictators could have fallen as well. Putin, Aliyev and Erdogan should have been sanctioned way in the beginning, and Aliyev and Erdogan are still not sanctioned but emboldened.