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Azerbaijan is a member of the United Nations, the Non-Aligned Movement, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, NATO's Partnership for Peace, the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council, the World Health Organization, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development; the Council of Europe, CFE Treaty, the Community of Democracies; the International Monetary Fund; and the World Bank.
Contents
- International organization participation
- Countries
- No relations
- Nagorno KarabakhArmenia
- Caviar diplomacy
- References
Azerbaijan has formal involvement with senior ex-U.S. government officials including James Baker and Henry Kissinger, as they serve on the Honorary Council of Advisors of the U.S.-Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce (USACC). USACC is co-chaired by Tim Cejka, President of Exxon Mobil Corporation and Reza Vaziri, President of R.V. Investment Group and Chairman of the Anglo Asian Mining Plc (LSE Ticker: AAZ).
International organization participation
AsDB, BSEC, CE, CIS, EAPC, EBRD, ECE, ECO, ESCAP, FAO, GUAM, IAEA, IBRD, ICAO, ICRM, IDA, IDB, IFAD, IFC, IFRCS, ILO, IMF, IMO, Interpol, IOC, IOM, ISO (correspondent), ITU, ITUC, OAS (observer), OIC, OPCW, OSCE, PFP, United Nations, UNCTAD, UNESCO, UNIDO, UPU, WCO, WFTU, WHO, WIPO, WMO, WToO, WTrO (observer)
Countries
Azerbaijan currently has diplomatic relations with 160 countries: Afghanistan, Bahrain, Belarus, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, the People's Republic of China, Denmark, Egypt, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iran, Iraq, Republic of Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Kuwait, Libya, Luxembourg, Mexico, Moldova, Mongolia, Netherlands,Nicaragua, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Poland, Qatar, Republic of India, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Tajikistan, Togo, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.
Azerbaijan is one of the few countries with predominantly Muslim populations that shares a strategic alliance with Israel. Today, Israel is a major arms supplier to the country. (See Azerbaijan–Israel relations).
Azerbaijan also maintains good relations with the European Union, in the framework of its Eastern European Neighbourhood Policy (See Azerbaijan and the European Union).
No relations
Azerbaijan maintains diplomatic relations with 174 states (including Palestine and the Vatican City) and the European Union. Azerbaijan has not yet established diplomatic relations with:
Nagorno-Karabakh/Armenia
The frozen conflict over the largely Armenian autonomous region of Nagorno-Karabakh within the republic of Azerbaijan began when in 1988 the Armenian majority of Nagorno-Karabakh demanded autonomy with demonstrations following in Armenia. This led to anti-Armenian rioting in Azerbaijan, with Azerbaijani militias beginning their effort to expel Armenians from the enclave. In 1992 a war broke out and pogroms of Armenians and Azeris forced both groups to flee their homes. In 1994, a Russian-brokered ceasefire ended the war but more than 1 million ethnic Armenians and Azeris are still not able to return home. The conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh remains unresolved despite negotiations, that are ongoing since 1992 under the aegis of the Minsk Group of the OSCE, to resolve the conflict peacefully.
Caviar diplomacy
The European Stability Initiative (ESI) has revealed in a report from 2012 with the title "Caviar Diplomacy: How Azerbaijan silenced the Council of Europe", that since Azerbaijan's entry into the Council of Europe, each year 30 to 40 deputies are invited to Azerbaijan and generously paid with expensive gifts, including caviar (worth up to 1.400 euro), silk carpets, gold, silver and large amounts of money. In return they become lobbyists for Azerbaijan. This practice has been widely referred to as "Caviar diplomacy".
ESI also published a report on 2013 Presidential elections in Azerbaijan titled "Disgraced: Azerbaijan and the end of election monitoring as we know it". The report revealed the ties between Azerbaijani government and the members of certain observation missions who praised the elections. Azerbaijan's "Caviar diplomacy" at 2013 presidential elections sparked a major international scandal, as the reports of two authoritative organizations Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe/European Parliament and OSCE/ODIHR completely contradicted one another in their assessments of elections.
Non-governmental anti-corruption organization Transparency International has regularly judged Azerbaijan to be one of the most corrupt countries in the world and has also criticized Azerbaijan for the "Caviar diplomacy".