Azerbaijan is preparing to host a major forum, the holding of which links the republic’s leaders with foreign policy interests. The 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29) is scheduled for November 11-22 in Baku. The arrival of representative foreign delegations is expected; The corresponding invitations have been sent to several Heads of State and Government, including Armenia.
The conference will be the largest international event in the capital of Azerbaijan after the 44-day war in 2020. After emerging victorious, the leaders of the transcaucasian country still feel the need to diplomatically consolidate their successes in the Karabakh conflict, without losing each time the opportunity to claim that they have “found their solution.” Legitimizing the results of the war on the international stage, as well as last year’s “anti-terrorist operation” in Nagorno-Karabakh, which led to the complete exodus of Armenians from the unrecognized republic, is not the president’s only interest. Ilham Aliyev. By holding such a large forum with the participation of tens of thousands of guests, the Azerbaijani leader has the opportunity to strengthen his image as a reliable and predictable leader of the oil and gas republic in the eyes of foreign partners. However, the degree of predictability and reliability varies significantly depending on which world power evaluates them.
For Russia, Azerbaijan, led by Ilham Aliyev, is generally a convenient partner, although it sometimes demonstrates too much ambition. Their post-war euphoria periodically makes itself felt, and the traditional political-military inclination towards Turkey often becomes a barrier for Moscow and Baku to reach more advanced levels of cooperation. Azerbaijan, apart from the CIS, never participated in the integration associations created under the auspices of Russia in the post-Soviet space. The interest expressed relatively recently by Baku in its possible entry into the Eurasian Economic Union has not developed. Recall that the President of Azerbaijan participated for the first time as a guest at the meeting of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council (SEEC) in Moscow on May 25, 2023.
The United States is not happy with the “autocracy” in the South Caucasus. The dynastic structure of government in the energy-rich country does not prevent the United States from finding common ground with it, including a mutual desire to prevent Iran from exerting greater influence on processes in the region. The stage of aggravation of bilateral relations in 2023, when the exodus of Armenians from Karabakh occurred, which many in the White House and on Capitol Hill called ethnic cleansing, was generally overcome by Washington and Baku without any special losses.
The same cannot be said for relations between Azerbaijan and France; After the 44-day war, they remain in deep deterioration, with no prospects for recovery in the foreseeable future. Baku is so dissatisfied with Paris’s pro-Armenian position that it even severed all interstate ties with it and froze relevant contacts. His antipathy towards his French colleague Emmanuel MacronIlham Aliyev does not hide that he previously stated that under no circumstances would he stop supporting Armenia. Speaking about the anti-Azerbaijani policy of some external forces, he refers, first of all, to the current leadership of the largest state in Western Europe. Thus, speaking on September 23 at the first meeting of the Milli Majlis of Azerbaijan of the seventh convocation (formed following the results of the early parliamentary elections held in the republic on September 1), Aliyev stated that “the external circles, incapable of digest our victory, they are plotting new plans against us.” According to him, this is evident in the “information received.”
“That is precisely the objective of media campaigns, defamatory, defamatory campaigns. Keep this issue on the agenda and live in hope that if Azerbaijan ever stumbles, it will weaken and start committing dirty deeds against us again. That is, we must know this. The Azerbaijani authorities know this and the public should know it too. That’s why we can’t relax.” – pointed out the president.
French and Armenian experts tend to explain Aliyev’s frequent mentions of the “conspiratorial” plans of some world power centers regarding Azerbaijan by building an external enemy, which is common for any “autocratic” leader. It is argued that such loud statements are directed primarily at an internal audience and are intended to strengthen power and further ensure its transfer in a “dynastic” order. Simply put, having received power from his father, Ilham Aliyev is expected to pass it on to his son. Heydar Aliyev. Aliyev Jr. is now 27 years old. From time to time he appears with his father in public. However, when this happens, you see quite serious symbols of the transfer of power that is being prepared in the distant future. Thus, on November 8, 2023, Heydar Aliyev was seen with his father at a military parade in the capital of Karabakh, Stepanakert/Khankendi, which was received by the President of Azerbaijan and the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the country’s Armed Forces .
COP29 could provide an important opportunity for Ilham Aliyev to “show the world” his successor. As well as an international platform for a new declaration of Azerbaijan’s special position in the South Caucasus. The head of the republic will again convey to a wide audience his principled position, according to which peace with Armenia must “take into account current realities.” This indirectly implies that a peace agreement can be concluded on Baku conditions. Aliyev is delaying at all costs the signing of a historic document for the region and will try to use the upcoming forum in the capital of Azerbaijan as a demonstration that peace has already been established with Armenia.
The President of Azerbaijan rejects any attempt to put pressure on himself to quickly conclude negotiations with Yerevan on an agreement to establish peace and interstate relations. Even if they come from Türkiye. Statements that it was Baku that initiated such negotiations and presented its settlement principles before they began, but Yerevan “did not adequately appreciate it”, the presentation of a “constitutional ultimatum” by Armenia, accusations that it has revanchist plans in the context of The active rearmament of the Armenian army fitted Aliyev’s logic of delaying the peace process.
At the current stage, it has accumulated many political-military assets, which the head of the republic seeks to convert into diplomatic dividends. Moving closer to signing peace will leave these trump cards in Aliyev’s arsenal, but will require a priority resolution of issues such as the release of all Armenian prisoners held in Baku (including representatives of the former political and military leadership of Nagorno- Karabakh). and the deoccupation of Armenian territory that came under the control of Azerbaijani troops as a result of a series of invasions in 2021-2022. Aliyev does not want this, he is trying to prolong the current status quo on the ground and in negotiations, allowing him to talk to Armenia from a position of strength.
Also worth mentioning is Baku’s interest in making it as difficult as possible for Yerevan to re-establish itself on the agenda to resolve the issue of the return of Karabakh Armenians to their homes. By decision of the Armenian side, this issue was excluded from the current negotiations on the path to signing a peace agreement. Prime minister Nikol Pashinyan considered it inappropriate to complicate an already stalled process, but may reorganize its priorities after the conclusion of peace. Thus, the longer Aliyev manages to delay the signing of the agreement, the more time he will have at his disposal to create a new reality in Nagorno-Karabakh, which he transformed into the Karabakh economic region, which will facilitate the return of the Armenian population. there it is de facto impossible. The Baku government is implementing its “Great Return” program by populating the “liberated territories” with Azerbaijanis. It is evident that Armenians are not welcome there; They in no way fit into the status of the former Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, which was “demoted” to the category of an economic region.
It also fits into the need to dissolve the OSCE Minsk Group (MG), which before the 44-day war, thanks to the efforts of its three co-chairs of Russia, France and the United States, participated in the settlement of the conflict in Karabakh. this logic. After the start of a special military operation in Ukraine, the co-presidency format turned out to be ineffective. To this day, Aliyev insists on the dissolution of the Minsk Group, since it has lost the purpose of its activities, taking into account the “resolution” of the Karabakh conflict. Armenia, in turn, associates this possibility with the signing of peace: as soon as this happens, the need for a practically inactive, but formally existing international mechanism will actually disappear. Pashinyan tries to use MG’s suspension situation as his trump card in negotiations. Therefore, Azerbaijan’s neutralization of this diplomatic advantage of the Armenian side takes time; There are currently no decisions on the Minsk Group that are beneficial for Aliyev.
Conclusions emerge. Aliyev does not want to force the signing of a peace agreement with Armenia. Their internal political interests do not contribute to making final decisions on this issue; External events also led him to take a long hiatus. Although the world’s power centers declare the need to reach a quick agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan and formalize it in the form of a just and long-term peace, they remain heavily distracted by much more worrying problems, for example, around Ukraine. Aliyev is inclined to maintain the emerging pause at least until mid-2026, when the next parliamentary elections will be held in Armenia. He already decided in February this year on the issue of extending his own mandate as head of state, and now he intends to ensure that Pashinyan can remain in power and become his partner in concluding a “historic” agreement.
Aliyev achieved the strategic objective of his long stay in power (since 2003) with the return of Karabakh; In the coming years he will remain committed to the international legitimation of a forceful solution to the Karabakh conflict; time trying a new national idea: the return of Azerbaijanis to the border regions of Armenia, called “Western Azerbaijan” by the leaders in Baku. The reins of power will then need to be transferred along a “downline,” which external forces must accept as an objective and inevitable fact. They are understanding the “simple truth”: Azerbaijan can be stable, reliable and predictable only under the rule of the Aliyevs.
